To better the social health and economic conditions of women and children, the Government has adopted a number of programmes and initiatives. Many of these centrally-sponsored schemes, like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Reproductive and Child Health Programme, the National Rural Health Mission and the Integrated Child Development Services have increased public resources to key sectors. However, the main challenge to be overcome in these sectors is to deliver these commitments and initiatives into results that can be measured.

ICDS Restructured

It is against this background that the paradigm shift of the Ministry of Women & Child Development in its approach to social sector issues assumes significance. The variance in approach signifies a replacement of the earlier solely only welfare oriented methodology with the aim of the holistic empowerment of women and child.

            The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, launched in 1975 is the major component of these programmes. It has been expanded in three phases in the years 2005-06, 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Under the scheme, 6771 ICDS Projects and 12.95 lakh AWCs (Anganwadi Centers) are working as at present. Their services are being availed by more than nine and a half crore beneficiaries.  The number of AWCs has increased by more than half a crore during 2010 – 2011.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)

Another important development in this respect has been the Union Government’s decision to formulate a national policy and curriculum framework on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). This policy is to be put into operation through the strengthened and restructured ICDS. This will result in the AWCs being re positioned as the Early Childhood Development Centres. These centres, in turn, will function as an enabling environment for promotion of early childhood development, with a sharp focus on delivering quality ECCE.

Information Kit for Rural Mothers.

It is against these developments that Information, Communication and Education (ICE) packages fro the Indian Rural Women have to be formulated. The following are some of the major points that will be covered by such packages.

• No marriage before the girl is eighteen years old.
• Breast feeding the child is equally important for the health and immunity – not only of the child, but also of the mother.
• The mile stones of the child development must be watched for and noted. It is the responsibility of not only the health worker, or the mother! Rather it is the responsibility of the whole family!! (Important milestones include the fixing of the head, sight and hearing abilities, appropriate increase in weight etc).
• The immunization schedule for the child should be strictly followed. The immunization card provided by the rural health worker can be of great aid in providing an added vigour to following the schedule.
• The father of the child has an equally important role in the growth of the child. It is he who provides the fledgling child with a sense of security and confidence to take on life as part of a society. The rate of the growth of intelligence of a child increases when the child is brought up by both the father and the mother rather than when by a single parent.

(PIB Feature)

“The objective of the training is to equip women of different backgrounds with English proficiency, computer literacy and vocational skills to make them independent and employable,” Dayanand Sagar Institute vice-president R. Janardhan told IANS.

Buoyed by the success of its pilot project in which 30 women in the 25-60 age group were trained and absorbed by 10 firms across verticals, the institute is commencing a three-month crash course from Jan 16 to train about 150 women in five batches of 30 each.

“We were able to rope in 30 women with and without formal education to take the course titled ‘Women Accomplished’ on trial basis,” Janardhan said.

“Though they were from different backgrounds, including college dropouts, they acquired the skills to be employed for diverse jobs with Rs.10,000-12,000 salary per month,” he added.

As a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, the institute is subsidising the course to levy a fee of Rs.4,500 for the training course and offering its campus facilities for five days a week (Monday-Friday).

“As the majority of women will be homemakers or doing part-time or odd jobs, we have kept the syllabi and the classes flexible to enable them to spare three hours a day to acquire the skills, be it English, computer basics and vocations such as preventive health, first aid, skin care, maternity, diet, yoga and oral hygiene,” the vice-president noted.

The institute has structured the training modules with valuable inputs from diverse sectors such as IT & IT-enabled services (ITeS), call centres, factories, distribution networks, retail chains, small and medium enterprises and healthcare.

“On completion of the course at basic and advance levels, the institute will award the trainees with certificates. We will also arrange campus interviews for their selection by inviting companies scouting for skilled women,” Janardhan pointed out.

In addition to its faculty, the institute will invite experts from diverse fields, including those working at various levels in companies, to impart to the trainees the skills required for employing them suitably after the completion of the crash course.

“The game plan is to develop a training model that can be replicated by other institutes, organisations and corporates to empower women from across the social strata with employable skills and create a human capital in the long run,” Janardhan told IANS.

Computer literacy will enable the trainee women to open an e-mail account, write a letter using MS Word, search for information on the net and use social media to hone communication skills.

“With hundreds of educated men and women leaving the country every year for higher education and lucrative jobs overseas, there is a sudden ‘shortage’ of skilled workforce in various sectors of the economy,” the vice-president said.

“If we don’t arrest the trend and reverse the brain drain, we will lose out to competing countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines,” he added.

“The stories speak of a woman’s need to love, rather than the objects of love. Women love passionately, deeply, often angrily. Real love is not about sexual conquest, it is not a triumphant place, but a space of surrender,” Gokhale, co-director of the upcoming Jaipur Literature Festival, told IANS in an interview.

“These stories have been written over a period of time. The first of them, ‘Omens Sacred and Profane’, was penned over 20 years ago. Poet and novelist Jeet Thayil asked me to submit something for an anthology he was editing. I wrote it very quickly in a hotel room in Kathmandu, where I was holidaying with my husband, some time between lunch and dinner!”

“I don’t give myself too much time to think about it – that’s how I write a short story. Novels need structuring, planning, graphing. But short fiction requires a relentless flow and a sense of inevitability about the ending. I find it easier to write sad stories than funny ones, although a slightly macabre humour does creep into all that I write. The form lends itself to introspection, to piecing together the puzzles, mysteries and enigmas of half-encountered lives,” Gokhale said.

“The Habit of Love” (Penguin India) will be released Friday.

“These narratives have been imagined in airports, scribbled on the backs of envelopes, corrected in traffic jams! I think I’ll be doing more of them, carrying my tangled balls of wooly ideas and half-knitted stories around with me everywhere I go,” Gokhale told IANS.

“There is something about these very different voices and settings that hold together. They speak of the interior lives of women. They carry a note of anxiety, of regret, of time flying by and the fact that real love comes from vulnerablility,” she said.

“Omens 1″ is about Vatsala Vidyarthi, a lonely “literary lady” who works in an advertising agency. Vidyarthi suspects she has been robbed by her one-night stand during an official junket to Rishikesh and returns determined to bury the hurtful incident; yet it leads her to reassess the nature of faith and trust.

In the moving and enigmatic “Hamsdhwani”, a golden-winged swan, becomes the narrator of the tale of star-crossed lovers Nala and Damayanti.

“I wanted to work on a piece about Nala and Dayamanti for many years. The myth touched something in me ever since the time I had worked on the Mahabharata for young readers and encountered it hidden in the folds of the epic. My sister has a house in Nainital and there is a Nala-Damayanti lake nearby. There is also a mountain named after the Snake god, Karkotaka, who plays a transformative role in the myth.

“I identified with the emotive landscape as well as the physical geography, but I did not know what the handle was, or where and how to begin. My editor at Penguin suggested I turn it around, and look at love from the point of view of the swan in flight,” the writer said.

“The Habit of Love”, from which the collection gets its title, “was written for an Italian publication”. The story looks at the life of a widowed mother of two daughters, whose grief stands like a lonely Himalayan peak in the ring of icy heights surrounding Kathmandu.

Gokhale, who has been at the forefront of several global projects to carry Indian writing abroad, is now working on a new novel, “Things to Leave Behind”.

She is the author of several acclaimed novels like “Paro – Dreams of Passion”, “Priya: In Incredible Indyaa”, “Gods, Graves and Grandmother”, “A Himalayan Love Story” and “Shakuntala: The Play of Memory”. Her works of non-fiction include “Mountain Echoes” and “The Book of Shiva”.

Gross has worked in the field for over 25 years, but she’s still an anomaly. Women have been gaining ground as engineers since the 1980s, according to a National Science Foundation report, but in 2006 women were still only 19 per cent of those holding a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

In 2011, an all-female team – that included Gross – was behind the creation, marketing and distribution of the Volt, the first electric car with extended range capability. Talking passionately about the product she helped create, Teri Quigley, plant manager at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, the production place for the Chevrolet Volt, says, “The Volt is a great demonstration of the opportunities that exist for women. It requires hard work just like any job, but the door is wide open for success.”

In the US, women make up less than 11 per cent of working engineers and earn 86 per cent of the salaries of their male counterparts. Engineering salaries are among the highest earnings for college graduates, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In electrical engineering, the median salary for the lowest 10 per cent of the field is $52,990, while the median salary for the highest paid 10 per cent of engineers is $125,810.

“I think the only barrier, given you are strong and capable, is getting women past the word engineering,” believes Gross. “It sounds stale and not very exciting but I can’t imagine anything more exciting than my career.”

Engineering careers are time consuming and all four women say that the one downside to their work is the time it takes away from family life. “It’s clearly the No. 1 challenge,” says Gross. But she adds that there are also benefits for children, “It makes stronger kids and they appreciate what mom can do.”

The first Volts were delivered in Washington D.C., the New York City metropolitan region, California, and Austin, Texas. In May 2011, the green car had been launched in Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia. And as per expansion plans across the country, bookings for Chevrolet Volt 2012 started in June 2011, with deliveries in November 2011.

For Gross, that has meant making sure areas have websites and numbers for consumers to call about the cars, electrical contractors are prepared and incentives are in place.

The list price for the 2011 model is $41,000 with a tax credit of $7,500, revealed Cristi Landy, production marketing manager of the vehicle, who was on the original car team formed in 2006.

Today, a few electric cars are in production or on the market around the world. In the United States, the Volt and Nissan Leaf are the first “family-size” electric vehicles, compared to most electric cars, which are usually small and have two doors. And the team is excited about the work they have done.

In the mid-1990s, General Motors withdrew an all-electric car, the EV1. But according to Gross, the Volt has some key differences. The EV1 was a two-seater, light-weight, all-electric car with limited driving range and produced with specialty materials. Gross says there is a standard now for charging electric cars, which was not in place when the EV1 came out.

The goal for the Volt team was to make an electric car with wide-range capability. Although the Volt can use gas, Gross says it is an electric car first. According to her, 78 per cent of drivers in the US travel less than 40 miles a day. The Volt can travel for 25 to 50 miles on electricity alone depending on conditions. For the next 340 more miles, the car uses electric and gasoline power, making the four-seater appropriate for a small family, reveals Pam Fletcher, chief engineer for Volt and Plug-In Hybrid Propulsion Systems.

The car takes up to 10 hours to charge and requires a three-pronged, 120-volt outlet, which can be found in most homes. There is a button to lower the charge to avoid fuse blowouts. A 240-volt charger, which comes with installation costs, can reduce charging time to four hours.

According to Gross, General Motors found that 50 per cent of cars are parked at home or at work. Based on this, she has worked to make chargers accessible at home first and then work locations. The Volt team is also trying to make the car more accessible to apartment residents, who may not have a place to charge the vehicle.

Ever thought that there will be a time when an all-female team would be behind the launch of a premier model by an automobile giant? More power to female engineers!

By arrangement with Women’s eNews.

(Katherine Rausch is a freelance writer with a degree in journalism. For original story, log on to:

http://www.womensenews.org/story/women-in-science/110419/female-engineers-put-buzz-gms-volt)

Source : Womens Feature Service

The more such a man believes a woman fancies him, the more likely he is to keep trying and, therefore, ‘get lucky’ the next time, says the study.

It concluded that if a man finds a woman irresistible, then chances are she’s not interested, reported the Daily Mail, citing the journal Psychological Science.

The research involved 96 male and 103 female undergraduates, who were put through a ‘speed-meeting’ exercise, talking for three minutes to each of five potential opposite sex mates.

Before the conversations, the participants rated themselves on their own attractiveness and were also assessed for the level of their desire for a short-term sexual encounter.

After each ‘meeting’, they rated the partner on a number of measures, including physical attractiveness and sexual interest in the participant.

The results showed that men looking for a ‘quick hook-up’ were more likely to overestimate the women’s desire for them.

The ‘speed dating’ model used by the researchers allowed them to study dozens of interactions between men and women – and build a clear picture of what ‘strategies’ worked for mating males.

Carin Perilloux, psychologist at Williams College in Massachusetts, said: ‘There are two ways you can make an error as a man.’

‘Either you think: ‘Oh, wow, that woman’s really interested in me’ and it turns out she’s not. There’s some cost to that, such as embarrassment or a blow to your reputation.’

The researchers theorise that the kind of men who ‘went for it’, even at the risk of being rebuffed, were eventually more successful more often.

‘This suggests that drinking-prevention efforts should begin before college,’ said Maria Testa, from the University of Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions, who led the study.

Of all young women whose biggest binge had included four to six drinks, one quarter said they’d been sexually victimised in the autumn semester. That included anything from unwanted sexual contact to rape.

The college years are notoriously linked with drinking. But little has been known about how young women change their high school drinking habits once they start college, the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs reports.

Accordingly, researchers followed 437 young women from high school graduation through freshman year of college, according to a Buffalo statement.

They found that of women who had never drunk heavily in high school (if at all), nearly half admitted to binge drinking at least once by the end of their first college semester.

And the more alcohol those binges involved, the greater the likelihood of sexual assault.

Of women who’d ever consumed 10 or more drinks in a sitting since starting college, 59 percent were sexually victimised by the end of their first semester.

The study also underscores the fact that even kids who don’t drink in high school are at risk of heavy drinking once they head off to college, Testa concluded.

 Reconstitution of statutory bodies under the Act and regular meetings of the Central Supervisory Board, State Supervisory Board and Advisory Committees to monitor effective implementation of the law.

• Rule 11(2) of the PC & PNDT Rules, 1996 has been amended to provide for confiscation of unregistered machines and further punishment of organizations which fail to register themselves under the Act.
• Dedicated PNDT cells have been set up at State/district level for enhancing in-house capacities for building credible cases for conviction against violations of the Act.
• Surprise field inspections of ultrasound clinics by the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) in states/UTs against violations under the Act.
• NIMC has been further empowered to oversee follow-up action by Appropriate Authorities against organizations found guilty of violations under the Act during  inspections.
• Sensitization and training programme have been conducted for law enforcers,  medical practitioners, judiciary etc. for effective implementation of the Act.
• Comprehensive Information, Education & Communication (IEC) activities including mass media awareness campaign through print and electronic media and community mobilization through Non-Governmental Organizations have also been undertaken.

This information was laid by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in Rajya Sabha

‘To get fit with all physical conditions, including with nutritious strength, maternity leave has been increased from three months to six months for all working pregnant mothers,’ Sarkar told reporters after a cabinet meet.

Farzana Yasmin said she wants everyone to take lessons from the incident.

‘Dowry has become a cancer of society. I’ve read in newspapers about it and have always wondered why this happens,’ Farzana told BBC Bangla Service.

‘When it happened right before my eyes, something happened inside me. I felt like speaking up against it and doing something about it,’ she said.

Farzana, who recently completed her masters from Eden College, Dhaka, said: ‘Everything was complete. They were about to take me to the wedding car.’

Then she realised something was wrong while seated on the stage. She heard her would-be in-laws demanding ‘gifts’. ‘They said, ‘Where are the gifts?’ They didn’t call it dowry.’

‘My elder sister reacted, ‘We are going to give you our girl, nothing else was promised’,’ said Farzana.

An aunt of her groom came to Farzana and said, ‘We are going to keep this girl hanging for five years, if we don’t receive a TV and refrigerator, we won’t take her home’.

‘I was dumbfounded! I asked my husband, who sat beside me, ‘What is this?’, and he replied, ‘My aunt’s words are my words’, she said.

Farzana took a stand and said it was not possible for her to remain there. ‘I’d rather leave than stay with people who ask for dowry.’

Though her family and friends found it difficult to support her decision in the beginning, they later appreciated the move.

‘I have no regrets. May be I haven’t changed the lives of 10 people, but I want people to take the lesson that girls can do something,’ she said.

It has been implementing many programmes which aim at providing access to education and vocational training to women. The most important being, the ‘Women’s Vocational Training Programme‘ launched under the Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGE&T) in the Ministry of Labour. The programme attempts to promote the women employment in industry (mainly organised sector) as semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled workers by increasing their participation in skill training facilities. Under this programme, a separate ‘Women’s Training Wing’ has been set up at DGE&T Headquarters, which is responsible for designing and pursuing long term policies related to providing vocational training to women in the country. Also, as part of the programme, in the Central Sector, one National and ten Regional Vocational Training Institutes have been set up in different parts of the country. While, in the State Sector, a network of exclusive ‘Women Industrial Training Institutes (WITIs)‘ have been set up under the administrative control of the State Governments. These institutes provide basic skill training to women.

Also, the Government has been making efforts for creating a congenial work environment for women workers. For this purpose, a separate ‘Cell for Women Labour’ has been set up in the Ministry to focus attention on the condition of working women and bring about an improvement therein. The Cell has the following functions:-

• Formulation and coordination of policies and programmes for the female labour force within the framework of national manpower and economic policies.

• Maintaining liaison with other Government agencies to secure effective implementation of the programmes in respect of women workers.

• Monitoring the implementation of the Equal Remuneration Act,1976.

• Setting up of an Advisory Committee under the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

• Giving grants-in-aid to Non-Governmental Organisations/ Voluntary Organisations to formulate and execute action oriented projects for women workers.

Moreover, a number of protective provisions have been incorporated in the various laws enacted for equality and empowerment of women, the proper enforcement of which will create an enabling environment for women workers.

	Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
	Equal Remuneration Act, 1976

Source : Government of India

It is the men who are really fond of hugging, while one out of three women who can’t stand it force themselves into doing it, to avoid annoying their partner, reveals a new study.

Fifty five percent of women usually allow their menfolk briefest of hugs before rolling over to go to sleep. Another half admit they don’t like cuddling in bed because when they finally retire, they just want to go to sleep.

One in five say they don’t like prolonged physical contact with their partner in bed, claiming that it makes them hot and uncomfortable, the Daily Mail reports.

A third of women give night-time cuddles just twice a week or less. And more than one in 20 admit they ‘hardly ever’ cuddle their partner.

Close to one in 10 women admit they’d rather be checking Facebook in bed than cuddling their partner.

Some 36 percent of British males say getting too few night-time cuddles has led to bedroom rows, compared to just 26 percent of women who say the same.

As for those affection-starved men – they are more likely to cuddle their partner all night long – 22 percent of men admit to this compared to just 18 percent of women, while conversely, women are also twice as likely to ‘hardly ever’ cuddle their partner as men.

Both sexes admit they tend to cuddle their partner less as they get older though. One in five men and women say they cuddle their partner once a night every night – seven times a week on average. And 41 percent of the nation agrees that cuddles are most likely during the winter months.

A spokesperson for Silentnight, the company behind the findings, said: ‘There is a general consensus that women prefer cuddling to men. But, according to our research, this clearly isn’t the case.

Women, Business and the Law 2012: Removing Barriers to Economic Inclusion finds that while36 economies reduced legal differences between men and women, 103 out of 141 economies studied still impose legal differences on the basis of gender in at least one of the report’s key indicators. The report also identifies 41 law and regulatory reforms enacted between June 2009 and March 2011 that could enhance women’s economic opportunities.

Globally, women represent 49.6 percent of the population but only 40.8 percent of the workforce in the formal sector. Legal differences between men and women may explain this gap. The report shows that economies with greater legal differentiation between men and women have, on average, lower female participation in the formal labor force.

“Competitiveness and productivity have much to do with the efficient allocation of resources, including human resources,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group. “The economy suffers when half of the world’s population is prevented from fully participating. It is certainly no surprise that the world’s most competitive economies are those where the opportunity gap between women and men is the narrowest.”

The report measures such things as a woman’s ability to sign a contract, travel abroad, manage property, and interact with public authorities and the private sector. In all economies, married women face more legal differentiations than unmarried women. In 23 economies, married women cannot legally choose where to live, and in 29 they cannot be legally recognized as head of household.

Every region includes economies with unequal rules for men and women, although the extent of the inequality varies widely. On average, high-income economies have fewer differences than middle- and low-income economies. The Middle East and North Africa have the most legal differences between men and women, followed by South Asia and Africa. In Africa, a notable exception is Kenya, which leads globally with the most gender-parity reforms during the past two years. Regionally, the most improvements in gender parity occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia.

The report can be accessed at wbl.worldbank.org.

About the Women, Business and the Law Project:

The project measures how regulations and institutions differentiate between women and men in ways that may affect women’s incentives or capacity to work or to set up and run a business.Women, Business and the Law objectively measures such legal differentiations on the basis of gender in 141 economies around the world, covering six areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, and going to court. While the project provides a clear picture of gender gaps based on legal differences in each economy, it is a simple snapshot measuring only legal differentiation. It does not capture the full extent of the gender gap, nor does it indicate the relative importance of each aspect covered. For a collection of national legal provisions impacting women’s economic status in 183 economies, please visit the Gender Law Library.

About the World Bank Group

The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org.

* This article was originally published by United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and is available at http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/(http
News)/7F6321E556FA0364C12579220031A129?OpenDocument

‘Shabnam Rakhimova gave birth two hours before landing as the plane was crossing Kazakhstan airspace,’ she added. A nurse, who was on the aircraft, and four flight attendants delivered the newborn.

‘The boy weighed in at two kilograms and measured 48 centimeters. Despite the extreme conditions, the delivery went smoothly. The passengers greeted the boy with wild applause,’ the spokeswoman said.

She added that Tajik Air, as well as other airline companies, bans pregnant women from flying after the third trimester begins at six months. ‘Notwithstanding the strict rules, pregnant women conceal their real terms by providing false medical documents.’

This was the third time a baby was born on board a Tajik Air flight since 2007.

–IANS/RIA Novosti

snb/vt

They crave dependability, domesticity, a little romance, humour, average height, and aren’t after a 6ft Adonis, the Daily Express reported. A survey of 3,000 women of all ages for drinks company Orangina found they favoured a man aged 30 to 45, 5ft 10in tall, a good cook and with a job.

‘We need to document women’s experiences during conflicts so that the issues can be addressed during reconstruction. We also need to share experiences of local women in building peace to persuade policy makers of the positive role they can play,’ Kumudini Samuel, former member of a Sri Lankan government-appointed gender committee, said Friday in a statement.

Activists from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, among others, advocated for a specific and well-funded regional action plan on women, peace and security, in a two-day open discussion here, organised by the UN Women South Asia, that ended Thursday.

‘This is a strong message for peace,’ said UN Resident Coordinator Patrice Coeur Bizot.

The activists stressed on no amnesty for sexual and physical violence against women and other grave human rights violations.

A joint resolution, highlighting more involvement of south Asian women in peace building measures, was also presented to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the end of the discussion.

‘Over the last 20 years, out of 300 peace agreements globally, 445 conflict situations, only 18 have addressed sexual violence… We have to go beyond mere tokenism,’ said Rita Manchanda, a peace activist from India.

Opening the meeting Shri Azad said that today’s meeting has important bearings for the future of the nation as the declining child sex ratio in most of the States is a matter of grave national concern. Shri Azad said there is urgent need to arrest the gender imbalance. “Proper implementation of the PC & PNDT Act and deliberation on the steps are required to be taken to address this grave challenge by the States”, he said. “The 2011 Provisional Census figures have served as a wake-up call for all of us. The misuse of medical technology for pre birth sex selection is evidently increasing” he noted as the number of girls in the age group of 0-6 years now stands at a mere 914 for every 1000 boys. The Minister said all necessary steps; political, social, economic and scientific, need to be taken to end negative discrimination against the girl child. The role that Information, Education and Communication (IEC) can play in building a positive environment for valuing the girl child can hardly be over-emphasized. “Though the PC & PNDT Act is a central legislation, it’s implementation lies entirely with the States who are expected to enforce it through District Appropriate Authorities at the State, District and Sub-district levels”. Shri Azad asked all States to appoint the Appropriate Authorities and also monitor their functioning as also conduct systematic inspections and overall monitoring of doctors and clinics registered under the Act. Shri Azad urged the States to ensure proper utilization of the funding under NRHM for setting up dedicated PNDT cells at the State and district levels to strengthen capacity to enforce the PC & PNDT Act.

. The Union Minister also urged the States to implement the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram in true letter and spirit so that the poor, needy and vulnerable sections of our society are brought into the institutional fold and their out of pocket expenses are eliminated.

The term, which is the equivalent of ‘miss’, should be removed from the French language, the women’s groups has said.

They claim the equivalent word for men-’Damoiseau’, meaning ‘squire’-was abolished decades ago, according to the Daily Mail.

Two feminist groups, ‘Les Chiennes de Garde’ (Guard Bitches) and Osez le Feminisme (Dare feminism), have launched campaigns to remove the term ‘mademoiselle’ from state and company forms.

They say it bolsters male machismo because it originates from the word ‘virgin’.

Traditionally, the term is seen as complimentary when used by men. It indicates that a woman is young and attractive.

Feminist groups have opposed the term ‘mademoiselle’ since a long time.

In 1983, the then minister of women’s rights, Yvette Roudy, claimed it was ‘discriminatory’, while the Les Chiennes de Garde had also opposed the term in 2006.

The ‘Safe in the City’ website will be launched Oct 30 and it will work as a reporting tool for any woman who is harassed anywhere in the country, the NGO said in a statement.

The site will also have a special map of 100 most unsafe places in the capital.

Twenty employees are taking part in the expedition. It will return to Delhi Oct 3.

The study highlighting the pressures of parenting found that two-thirds of mothers who stay at home rely on nurseries and nannies. One in 10 pay up to 20 percent of their income for a break from their offspring, the Daily Express reported.

Raising children was such hard work that many women — at least 20 percent — admit they only enjoy half the time they spend with them.

A whopping 70 percent said they used their ‘child-free time’ to do housework and shopping while 30 percent simply catch up on sleep, found the study by TV channel Cartoonito.

‘Mums certainly shouldn’t feel bad about enlisting some support so they can take some time out for themselves. The pre-school years can be incredibly stressful, especially for stay-at-home mums without a job. Toddlers are mini whirlwinds with boundless energy and a million questions on a good day or terrific tantrums on bad days,’ says family psychologist Pat Spungin.

The Minister of State (I/C) for Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath revealed in Lok Sabha today that as per the information received from the Government of Madhya Pradesh, the probe into child sex trade among Banchra tribe has been completed. As part of the measures taken to curb the instances of child sex trade amongst the Banchra tribe, a survey was conducted by the State Government in the abodes of the tribe where the arrival of minor girls was closely observed. As a result of the survey 25 minor girls were rescued and sent to shelter homes where they are being provided with education and other facilities.

The Minister informed the house that the Government of India is taking a number of measures to prevent and combat trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in the country. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 supplemented by the Indian Penal Code prohibits trafficking in human beings, including children and lays down penalties for trafficking. A Comprehensive Advisory on Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking in India has been issued on 09.09.2009 by the Government of India to all States/ Union Territories. Further, the Ministry has been implementing the “Ujjawala” Scheme, under which financial assistance is being provided, inter alia, for prevention of trafficking through formation of community vigilance groups/adolescence groups, holding sensitization and awareness generation workshops and preparing awareness generation material.

The Minister of State (I/C) for Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath stated in Lok Sabha today that dowry deaths are covered under Section 304B of IPC. As per Seventh Schedule, ‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects under the Constitution. As such, the primary responsibility of prevention, detection, registration, investigation and prosecution of crimes, including crimes against women, lies with the State Governments/ Union Territory Administrations. However, the Central Government attaches importance to the matter of prevention and control of crime against women and has been advising the State Governments from time to time depending upon the need regarding the steps that need to be taken to afford a greater measure of protection to the women and, in particular, to prevent incidence of crimes against them. These advisories, inter-alia, emphasize gender sensitization of the police personnel, minimizing delays in investigations of crime against women and improving the quality of investigation and setting up ‘Crime against Women Cells’ in districts where these do not exist. States/ UT Administrations have also been advised that Dowry related cases must be adjudicated expeditiously to avoid further harassment of the women and also to develop a community monitoring system to check cases of violence, abuse and exploitation.

1. We, the Ministers of Education and representatives of the E-9 and SAARC countries having assembled in New Delhi, India from 8 September 2011 to 10 September 2011 for a discourse on ‘Women’s Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development’ reiterate collaborative global action for women’s literacy.

2. We acknowledge the good practices of the different countries as reflected in the country presentations to meet the EFA and MDGs and the commitments made in the Eighth E-9 Ministerial review meeting on Education for All ‘Literacy for Development’ at Abuja, Nigeria.

3. We appreciate the opinion and suggestions of adult education experts, policy makers, academics, and practitioners expressed in technical sessions and their concern for improving women’s literacy and their participation in development.

4. We reiterate collectively the centrality of women’s literacy and lifelong education for inclusive and sustainable development. We also realize that promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women are effective tools to combat poverty and to stimulate development to promote the values of humanity and of peace.

5. We recognize that policies and legislative measures for adult education need to be inclusive and integrated within lifelong learning perspective linking all components of learning and education for which participation of all stakeholders are indispensable to guarantee the needs and aspirations of the most disadvantaged sections of the society.

6. We acknowledge the importance of mainstreaming adult education to improve the literacy rate and quality of life and the need for higher resource allocation for the same.

7. We commit to improve the quality of the programme by pooling together all the good practices of the member countries in the areas of curriculum, teaching-learning materials, training, monitoring, and learner assessment.

8. We affirm our commitment to decentralisation and inclusion of women in all the initiatives related to literacy programmes.

9. We are convinced that learning today is within a lifelong and life wide framework and literacy is the very foundation for lifelong learning. We recognize the need for building an effective lifelong learning system and a learning society as a major strategic change for addressing global educational challenges.

10. We attest to the fundamental role of mutual cooperation as an important modality to exchange expertise, experiences and best practices among E9 and SAARC countries to achieve EFA goals through South-South cooperation and North-South-South Triangular Cooperation.

11. We commit ourselves to forge alliances for regional and sub-regional cooperation to meet the goals set by our countries, particularly in the areas of capacity building, assessment protocol, training and research. As an initial effort, as part of sub-regional cooperation we recommend that a Centre for Policy Research and Training in Adult Education can be established in New Delhi by 2013 for the benefit of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

      As far as Human Trafficking is concerned, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 8.72 crores for establishment of 115 Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) under its comprehensive scheme. Each AHTU has the composition of seven staff members which includes one Inspector, two Sub-Inspectors, Two Head Constables and Two Constables. States/UTs have been requested to include women police officers in AHTUs.

                As per inputs provided by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the total number of cases registered under the total crime of Human Trafficking during the period 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 3991, 3029 and 2848 respectively. State/UT wise details is at Annexure.

            These cases are registered,  investigated and prosecuted as per provisions of  law.

This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Shri Jitendra Singh,  in written reply to a question in the Rajya  Sabha today.

Click here to see Annexure

Sources close to Banerjee said the formal invitation from the hallowed institution was received at the chief minister?s secretariat Saturday. Banerjee has been requested to speak on either the ?Culture and Politics of Bengal? or ?Demographic Changes in Bengal?.

The university authorities have not fixed a date, but indicated their preference for late-October or the first week of November for the trip. Banerjee is considering the invitation, the sources said.

Last year, Banerjee was invited by Cambridge University for a lecture, but she cancelled the visit citing spiralling political violence in the state.

In May, she led an alliance of her party Trinamool Congress and the Congress to power ending the 34-year old rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) headed Left Front.

Official estimates on the number of surrogate pregnancies in India are not available. SAMA, a women’s health organisation, says the assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry in India, which includes surrogacy, is estimated at Rs.25,000 crore. Surrogacy in the U.S. costs upwards of $100,000 in addition to the cost of the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure, whereas in India it costs $23,000 to $25,000 as a package.

“Technically there is no law [to regulate surrogacy in India], and secondly it is just one-fourth the cost. That is what makes India an attraction for surrogate pregnancies,” says Preeti Nayak, a health worker with SAMA. “Not only do we need a proper regulatory framework for surrogacy, we also need to look closely at the health aspect as well.”

The government is in the process of making a law to regulate surrogacy. Doctors and health activists, however, have little faith in The Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament this year. They believe that unless some key issues regarding surrogacy are addressed, this could spiral into a massive racket.

“Currently they are playing with fire,” says a gynaecologist in Mumbai. “I used to have maybe one case a month. Now it is at least one case a week. This has to be regulated and stricter norms must be in place.”

Nonetheless, to many women in Anand, surrogacy has come as a boon. Especially for women like Sharadaben who lived a life of misery and abject poverty, it has been life-changing.

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There is no proposal to amend the existing law on Sati nor is there any proposal to bring about a separate law to prevent the crimes against women. Except for the provisions relating to Rape and Molestation, the existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) with regard to Kidnapping & Abduction (Sec. 363-373), Dowry Death (Sec.304-B) and Cruelty to married women (Sec.498A), which deal with the major offences committed against women, are adequate.

Smt. Krishna Tirath said that besides IPC, there are specific laws in existence for tackling offences such as trafficking, dowry, indecent representation, sati and domestic violence against women. They are Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956; Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986; Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. In addition, the Government has introduced a Bill in 2010 in Parliament to protect the women against sexual harassment at work place. ‘The Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010’ is a comprehensive Bill which will replace the existing guidelines on sexual harassment issued by the Supreme Court in Vishaka and others V. State of Rajasthan and others.

The Minister further stated that to ensure stricter implementation of the PCPNDT Act, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has taken following further steps:

• Rule 11(2) of the PC & PNDT Rules, 1996 has been amended to provide for confiscation of unregistered machines and further punishment of organizations which fail to register themselves under the Act.

• The National Inspection and Monitoring Committee has been reconstituted and apart from inspections, further empowered to oversee follow-up action by Appropriate Authorities against the organizations found guilty of violations under the Act during inspections.

• States have been asked during appraisal of the annual Programme implementation Plan (PIP) to take advantage of funding available under NRHM for strengthening infrastructure and augmentation of human resources required for effective implementation of the PC & PNDT Act.

• Operational guidelines for PNDT-NGO Grant in Aid Scheme have been revised to ensure targeted use of resources for effective implementation of the Act.

Merkel, who has topped the list of the world’s 100 most powerful women in all but one of the years since she became chancellor in November 2005, beat out US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, in 3rd place, Dilma Rousseff, who became Brazil’s first woman president on January 1 2011.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel is head of the one real global economy in Europe and is the ‘undisputed’ leader of the EU,” Forbes said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi figures as the seventh most powerful woman of the world in theForbes list which is topped by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

64-year-old Sonia Gandhi, who is recouping from an unspecified surgery in a US hospital, is ranked seventh jus ahead of US First Lady Michell Obama in a list of 100 most powerful women of the world released by the Forbesmagazine.

Fore the list of powerful woman 2011 click here . . .

As was shown in a previous article (”The Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO”), applying the participation rates of the NSSO survey of 2009-10 to interpolated population figures from Censuses 2001 and 2011 shows that total female employment actually declined at an annual rate of 1.72 per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10, while male employment (mostly in casual work) showed a slight increase, albeit much lower than in the previous period, at the rate of 1.72 per cent.

Clearly, this is a significant and potentially very disturbing result, especially given that women’s work participation rates are already quite low in India compared to most other parts of the developing world. It should be borne in mind, of course, that work participation rates as described by official surveys are not really good indicators of the productive contributions of women.

This is particularly so in large parts of India, where much of the economic activity of women, whether in the home or outside, is simply not recognised as such by other household members and even by the women themselves. A significant part of women’s work is not just unpaid, therefore: it is also socially unrecognised. This is true of not just social reproduction, but other economic activity where women’s work is rendered invisible by social perceptions.

That is why many social scientists take women’s work participation rate as one of the proxy indicators of women’s overall status in society and of gender empowerment. It is not just because paid work provides income individually to women rather than to male members of the household. It is also because the productive contribution of women is typically less recognised in societies where women are undervalued in general.

FOR MORE READING. . 

The Minister of Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath today stated in Lok Sabha that in order to curb female foeticide and improve the sex ratio, Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy which includes legislative measures, advocacy, awareness generation and programmes for socio-economic empowerment of women.

The Minister further stated that the legislative measures comprise of implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994(PCPNDT), under which sex selective abortions are punishable.

For advocacy and awareness generation and to create national awareness on issues relating to girl child, in 2009, Ministry of Women and Child Development has declared January 24 as the National Girl Child Day. Further, to encourage change of mind sets, Government of India has introduced on pilot basis, ‘Dhanalakshmi’, a scheme for incentivising birth of the Girl Child. A number of States are also implementing their own schemes to incentivise the birth of a girl child

The Minister informed that besides, the Government of India has undertaken a number of initiatives for socio-economic empowerment of women, such as Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP), The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and loans through the RashtriyaMahilaKosh.

The Government has approved the proposal for enhancing reservation of women in Panchayats from the present one-third to 50%. Accordingly, a bill for amendment of the Constitution of India had been introduced in the Parliament. As per the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Government has approved that reservation for Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes shall be on the basis of the percentage of rural population and not total population. An amendment to the pending Bill is proposed to be introduced.

There is at present no proposal for providing quota for OBCs and Minority women within the proposed reservation in the Bill.

The reservation in favour of backward class of citizens rests with the State Legislatures under Article 243 (D) (6). Part IX of the Constitution does not have any provision for reservation on the basis of religion. Hence there is no scope to provide for reservation under these categories for women by amendment.

The above information was given by the Minister of Panchayati Raj Shri V. Kishore Chandra Deo in a written reply in the Lok Sabha

Service allocation for CSE-2010 has not been made so far.

The details of male and female officers recruited through Indian Forest Service Examination are as under: -

(M=Male, F=Female)

The Government has no proposal to give weightage to women candidates for Civil Services Examinations to minimize the gender gap in the All India Services.

This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Shri V.Narayanasamy in written reply to question in the LokSabha

University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken number of steps for greater access to women in higher education like Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child for pursuing Higher and Technical Education. Construction of Women’s Hostels, Development of Women’s studies in Universities and Colleges, Schemes of capacity building of Women’s Manager in Higher education, Post Doctoral fellowships etc. All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has a scheme to encourage tuition fee waiver for girl students by incentivizing the technical institutions and relaxation in norms for establishment of new technical institutions exclusively for women.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Smt. D. Purandeswari, .

There is no separate fixed sanctioned strength for recruitment of Women in the Armed Forces. Women are recruited within the overall authorised strength of the respective Services. The present strength of women officers in the three Services of the Armed Forces i.e. in Army is 1055, in Air Force is 936 and in Navy 232.

The present strength of women officers in the three Services of the Armed Forces during the last three years and the current year (Service-wise), is as under:

Government, vide its order dated 26.9.2008, have granted permanent commission prospectively to Short Service Commission (Women) officers to be inducted in Judge Advocate General (JAG) Department and Army Education Corps (AEC) of Army and their corresponding Branch/Cadre in Navy and Air Force, Accounts Branch of the Air Force and Naval Constructor of the Navy.

This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in separate written replies to Shri Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, Shri Anand Prakash Paranjpe and Shrimati Seema Upadhyay in Lok Sabha

Under Article 243D (4) of the Constitution of India, not less than 1/3rd of the seats of Chairpersons of District Panchayats shall be reserved for women. The State of Panchayats Report 2008-09 sponsored by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj shows that in 2010 the percentage of women members in District Panchayats was 35.80%. However, the figures of percentage of women Chairpersons of District Panchayats is not available separately.

A Nation wide study on Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) commissioned by Ministry of Panchayati Raj in 2007-08 had concluded that the earlier notions of women being mere proxies for male relatives have gradually ceded space to the recognition that given the opportunity to participate in the political system, women are as capable as their male counterparts. EWRs have used their office not only to mainstream gender issues but also to address the developmental needs of the community as a whole and also issues such as health, sanitation, early childhood care, drinking water etc., that have a special impact on the lives of women.

Viet Nam: preventing anaemia in women of reproductive age

In a developing country such as Viet Nam, children and young women often suffer from iron and folate deficiency, resulting in anaemia and increased risk of death. In addition, the negative consequences of iron deficiency anaemia on the cognitive and physical development of children and on the work productivity of adults are of major concern for the Government.

A simple solution is to provide a regular supplement of iron and folic acid for women during child-bearing years. Evidence suggests that this is a desirable intervention in those parts of the world where women do not yet have access to fortified foods or to diets that are high in bioavailable iron.

In 1998, the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Regional Office initiated a weekly iron and folic acid supplementation (WIFS) project. The project was piloted in four Member States: Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines and Viet Nam.

Viet Nam became the first country in the Region to implement this anaemia prevention programme in women of reproductive age, using WIFS, combined with twice-yearly deworming. This was piloted in Than Mienh province in the late 1990s. The same initiative was introduced in 2006 in the Yen Binh and Tran Yen districts of Yen Bai province, covering 50 000 women ranging from 15 to 45 years of age. In 2008, the project was expanded to cover the whole province for a total of 250 000 women. Options to further scale up the programme from the provincial to national level are under discussion.

Thanks to the programme, anaemia prevalence in Yen Bai was reduced from 37.5% to 18%, and hookworm infestation decreased from 78.2% to 12%, according to a November 2010 evaluation of the nearly 5-year-old project. The birth weight of infants increased by about 130 grams. WHO is now working to support Yen Bai to secure a sustainable supply of iron and folic acid and to find viable ways to expand the programme.

The Philippines: a push for breastfeeding

A National Demographic Health Survey conducted in 2003 highlighted the dangerously low breastfeeding rates in the Philippines. The results came just after UNICEF and WHO launched the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF). In response to the survey and the strategy, the Philippines launched a national policy on IYCF and a five-year national action plan to provide strategic direction for improving breastfeeding practices in the country.

Among the follow-up initiatives is the Essential Newborn Care (ENC) protocol under the slogan “The First Embrace”, which encourages early skin-to-skin contact and non-separation of the newborn child from the mother in order to promote breastfeeding. The exclusive breastfeeding rate at 28 days of life in the pilot hospital was double the national average for all hospitals.

Supportive supervision for IYCF was stepped up in health centres, with regular visits by national and regional coordinators. Key IYCF indicators were included in the Integrated Child Survival Monitoring Tool.

Progress has been encouraging, but much work remains to be done. Other areas that need attention include:

• the implementation of the Essential Newborn Care protocol in hospitals to increase breastfeeding initiation rates within the first hour of life;
• reaching 1 million pregnant women through an integrated marketing communication effort;
• full implementation of the Expanded Rooming-In Act, which includes provisions for breastfeeding breaks and support for working women;
• the integration of IYCF in the curricula of all health workers; and
• the strengthening of implementation, monitoring and reporting of violations of the Milk Code, which regulates the marketing of breastmilk substitutes.

The latest national data (2008) show that the exclusive breastfeeding rate for the first six months remains unchanged at 34% and the rate of initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour remains at 54%. The figures may not be very dramatic, but they suggest the decline in breastfeeding in the Philippines is reversible.

Enhancement of reservation for women in Panchayats will facilitate more women to enter the public sphere and this will lead to further empowerment of women and also make Panchayats more inclusive institutions, thereby improving governance and public service delivery. The addition of word ‘rural’ before word ‘population1 occurring in the 1st Proviso of Clause (2)(iii) of the Rill will reflect appropriate demographic representation of categories of population for whom reservation is made.

At present, out of the total elected representatives of Panchayats numbering approximately 28.18 lakh, 36.87% are women. With the proposed Constitutional Amendment, the number of elected women representatives is expected to rise to more than 14 lakh. Having more elected women representatives would benefit the entire population of the States and UTs where Panchayati Raj is in existence.

Ministry of Panchayati Raj had moved a Bill for amendment to Article 243D of the Constitution on 26.11.2009 after approval of the Cabinet for enhancing reservation for women in (i) the total number of seats to be filled by direct election, (ii) offices of chairpersons and (iii) in seats and offices of chairpersons reserved for SCs and STs, to 50% in all tiers of Panchayats. The proposed official amendment, as indicated above, in the original Amendment Bill will be moved in the Lok Sabha at the earliest.

All States / UTs are parts thereof to which Part IX of the Constitution applies would be covered (Part IX does not apply to Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram, tribal areas of Assam and Tripura and hill areas of Manipur).

Background

The Constitutional Amendment Bill for enhancing reservation for women in Panchayats at all tiers from one third to one half was introduced in Lok Sabha on 26.11.2009 with the approval of Cabinet in its meeting on 27.08.2009. The Bill was referred to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development by Hon’ble Speaker on 21.12.2009. The Committee has recommended that word ‘rural’ be added before word ‘population’ occurring in Clause 2 (iii) of the original Amendment Bill in order to maintain better demographic representation to SCs and STs class. In view of this, it has been decided to make official amendment accordingly in the Bill already under consideration of Lok Sabha.

***

So believes a large section of society, including women. Are women to be blamed for not being empathetic enough or is this too another form of patriarchy to which women have been conditioned?

MOST of the conferences, workshops and meetings on women’s issues end up with the same argument repeated time and again, that women are the worst enemies of women. In case of female foeticide, it is forcefully argued that it is the mother or grandmother who is most instrumental in ensuring that a girl is not born even if it means aborting a female foetus several times. Similarly, most of the dowry deaths, it is claimed, are caused by the women relatives of the husband. Symptomatically it may be true but the issue is in fact too complex to be understood in such a simplistic phrase.

FOR MORE READING. .

In 2008, 796 million adults worldwide (15 years and older) reported not being able to read and write and two-thirds of them (64%) were women (see Table 1). The global adult literacy rate was 83%, with a male literacy rate of 88% and a female literacy rate of 79%. More than half of those unable to read and write – 412 million – lived in Southern Asia. A further 176 million adults were in sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these two regions accounted for three-quarters (74%) of adults unable to read and write worldwide. Among MDG regions, adult literacy rates were lowest in Southern Asia (62%), sub- Saharan Africa (63%), Oceania (66%) and Northern Africa (67%) (see Figure 1). In Western Asia, the adult literacy rate was 85% and in the remaining regions, at least 9 out of 10 adults reported being able to read and write. In the developed regions and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), almost all adults were able to read and write. At the national level, the lowest literacy rates were observed in sub-Saharan Africa. Less than half of the adult population was literate in ten countries – Mali (adult literacy rate 26%), Burkina Faso and Niger (29%), Chad (33%), Ethiopia (36%), Guinea (38%), Sierra Leone (40%), Benin (41%), Senegal (42%) and Gambia (45%).

Gender disparity was greatest in Southern Asia, where 73% of all men but only 51% of women had the ability to read and write. The gender parity index (GPI) – the ratio of female to male literacy rates – was 0.70 in this region. Similar disparities existed in sub- Saharan Africa (GPI 0.75) and Northern Africa (GPI 0.76). Gender disparity in adult literacy was also observed in Western Asia (GPI 0.84) and Oceania (GPI 0.89). In contrast, Eastern Asia (GPI 0.94) and South-Eastern Asia (GPI 0.95) are close to gender parity in adult literacy while parity (defined as GPI values between 0.97 and 1.03) has been reached in the developed regions and in the CIS.

The adult literacy rate increased by about 8 percentage points globally over the past 20 years – an increase of 6% for men and 10% for women. Progress was strong in Northern Africa, where the rate increased by 20%, and in Eastern and Southern Asia, which saw an increase of 15%. In other regions, adult literacy rates increased since 1990 as follows: Western Asia 11%; sub-Saharan Africa 9%; South-Eastern Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean 7%; and Oceania 4%. In developed regions and CIS countries, the increase was negligible as they were already close to universal literacy.

Click here for full text in pdf: FactSheet2010_Lit_EN (or)

http://www.unesco.org/education/ild2010/FactSheet2010_Lit_EN.pdf

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

FOR MORE READING. .

• EDUCATION FOR ALL : TARGETS AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN ELEVENTH PLAN
• EDUCATION OF DALIT GIRLS IN INDIA
• FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA
• LITERACY SCHEMES IN INDIA
• EDUCATION IN RURAL AREAS
• LITERACY RATE ON THE RISE, 11 TH PLAN TARGETS 80% – K.K.Pant
• TO BE EDUCATED IS TO BE FREE – Savera
• THE IMPORTANCE OF BASIC EDUCATION – Amartya Sen
• LITERACY RATE AMONG MINORITIES
• MEASURES TAKEN TO PROMOTE EDUCATION AMONGST EDUCATIONALLY BACKWARD MINORITIES
• HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: CHALLENGES FOR A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION

FOR MORE READING. . .

If Muslim women are  represented in the House to the same extent as their share in the population, there would have been 440 MPs, or 40 times their actual number.

The Muslim women members in the current Lok Sabha are Tabassum Begum, Kaisar Jahan (both Bahujan Samaj Party) and Mausam Noor (Congress).

Majority of the Muslim women fought Lok Sabha elections as independent candidates, particularly from the seventh Lok Sabha elections onwards.

For instance, out of the nine Muslim women contestants for the seventh Lok Sabha, six were independents, two contested on the Indian National Congress ticket and one on the Janata Party ticket. All of them lost.

In the eighth Lok Sabha elections, out of the seven Muslim women candidates, five were independents, and one each belonged to the Congress and the Lok Dal. Only the Congress nominee got elected. Coming to the ninth Lok Sabha, out of the 11 women candidates, nine contested as independents and two as Congress candidates. In the 10th Lok Sabha, 14 Muslim women contested the elections, of whom six were independent candidates, two each were fielded by the Janata Party and the Janata Dal and one each by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Door Darshi Party (DDP), the Indian Congress Socialist (ICS), and the Congress. All of them lost.

In 1996 for the 11th Lok Sabha, a record number of 37 Muslim women tried their luck. The Congress fielded only two Muslim women (Mohsina Kidwai, a Congress loyalist, and Begum Noor Bano aka Mahatab Zamani of the royal family of Rampur), while the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Kranti Dal (BKD) and the Rashtriya Aikata Manch (RAM) nominated one each.

In the 12th Lok Sabha elections, a total number of 15 Muslim women contested, nine of them as independents, two on the Congress ticket and one each from the Janata Dal (J.D.), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Puthiya Tamizhagam (P.T.) and the Samata Party. However, none of them was elected.

In the 13th Lok Sabha elections, 26 Muslim women contested, of whom the number of women contesting as independents was again high. The BSP fielded three; the S.P., the JD (Secular) and the Congress two each; and the Janata Party, the P.T., the RJD, the Rajasthan Vikas Party, the Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh and the All India Minorities Front one each. (In 2004, out of 355 women contestants, 239 lost their deposits. Only 45 women got elected).

For the 14th Lok Sabha, the total number of Muslim women contestants was 21: six independents, three each from the BSP and the Congress, and one each from the S.P., the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the CPI(M), the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Samata Party, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, the Samajwadi Jana Parishad, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Nav Bharat Nirman Party.

It appears from the above analysis that established national parties did not entertain Muslim women unless they already had a track record (as in the case of Mohsina Kidwai) or belonged to a dynasty with influence at the grass-roots level and the means to fight the election. The other national parties, including the Left, hardly showed any concern for representation of Muslim women. In comparison, though, the BSP and the Congress have given some space to Muslim women in this regard.

The Government has introduced a number of flagship programmes to enhance employment and income opportunities for poor people with special targets for women. It has also introduced a number of supporting social programmes to ensure enabling endowments of health education (including literacy) and skill building of marginalized population with special emphasis on women. Some of the key initiatives are as follows:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has been enacted to    enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing 100 days of assured employment to every household.  It mandates that at least 30 per cent beneficiaries are to be women.  Latest data relating to implementation of the Scheme shows that close to 50% of the total beneficiaries of the Scheme are women against 30% prescribed. Of the 283.59 and 200.34 crore mandays employment days generated in 2009-10 and 2010-11, 136.40 and 95.30 employment days respectively were for women representing about 48% share.
• The Sampoorna Grameen Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) in rural areas is a holistic livelihoodprogramme focused on SHGs of households below the poverty line.  This is now subsumed under the National Rural Livelihood Mission.  The programme earmarks 40 per cent oflabour opportunities for women.  Of the 20, 85,177 and 21, 09,796 Swarozgaris assisted in 2009-10 and 2010-11, 15, 02,285 and 14, 24,059 Swarozgaris were women representing 72.04% and 67.49% share in coverage.
• The Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY) an employment generationprogramme implemented in urban areas earmarks 30 per cent of labour opportunities for women.  Under this, Urban Women Self Help Programme (UWSP) stipulates a minimum of five women to form a Self Help Group for setting up gainful group enterprise with bank linkage.  A subsidy of Rs.3.00 lakhs of 35% of the cost of the project or Rs.60, 000/- per member of the group, whichever is less, is released with the balance coming from bank loan and margin money.  Revolving fund assistance is also provided to Thrift & Credit Societies (T&CS) at the rate of Rs.2, 000/- per member subject to a ceiling of Rs.25, 000/- per T&CS.  Against a target of 21,250 beneficiaries in 2009-10, 64,994 were covered in 2010-11, against a target of 25,000 beneficiaries, 15, 1887 beneficiaries were covered.
• The Self Help Groups (SHGs) – Bank linkage programme of NABARD is aimed at financial inclusion by extending outreach to poor households in rural areas, making credit services available at their doorstep on a sustainable basis.  The Micro Enterprise Development Programme of NABARD is aimed at enhancing capacity of members of SHGs through skill upgradation in farm and non-farm sector.
• Mahila Samriddhi Yojana (MSY)/Mahila Kisan Yojana (MKY) : National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC) introduced MSY in 2003-04 to provide loans upto Rs.25,000/- per unit at a concessional unit rate of 4% per annum with a repayment period of three years for SC women, which was enhanced to a loan ceiling of Rs.30,000/- from 2006-07.  Similarly, NSFDC launched MKY with effect from 1.5.2008 to provide term loans upto Rs.50, 000/- at 5% per annum interest rate to SC women for income generating ventures in agriculture and allied activities.  Under MSY/MKY Schemes, 35,635 beneficiaries were covered in 2009-10 with loans of Rs.46.45 crore and 15,528 beneficiaries in 2010-11 with loan of Rs.26.58 crore.
• Similarly, National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation has MSY Scheme for women of backward classes with loan ceiling of Rs.25,000/- at 4% per annum interest and New Swarnima Scheme with loan ceiling of Rs.50,000/- at 4% per annum interest.  The coverage in 2010-11 under the above two schemes was33,680 and 5986 beneficiaries with loan disbursement of Rs.31.21 crore and Rs.7.26 crore respectively.
• Likewise, National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation allows rebate of 1% on interest rate to women with disabilities under MSY.  In 2010-11, Rs.4.74 crore was disbursed as interest rebate to 1,214 women beneficiaries.
• The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) provides quality health care for women, with provision for institutional deliveries to reduce MMR and IMR.  RCH-II is a comprehensive flagship programme under NRHM which aims to reduce social and geographical disparities in access to, and utilization of quality reproductive and child health services.
• The reductions achieved in MMR and IMR in recent years, has to a large extent, been the result of the RCH-II programme implemented under the aegis of NRHM.  IMR has improved from 68(SRS2000) to 53(SRS2008) per 1000 live births.  There was a reduction in MMR from 301(SRS2001-03) to 254(SRS2008) per 1, 00,000 live births.
• The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All Campaign) launched in 2001-02 is a National Programme for universalisation of elementary education, which has a special focus on girls’ education and aims to target the ‘hardest to reach’ girls through residential schools, mid day meals and other incentives.
• The National Literacy Mission or Saakshar Bharat Mission, with its objective of extending educational options to those adults who have no access to formal education, emphasizes on female literacy as a critical instrument for women’s empowerment.  The Mission aims to target 70 million adults in the next five years, out of which 60 million will be women.
• For strengthening education among ST girls in Low Literacy Districts, a revised scheme with effect from 1.4.2008 is being implemented in 54 identified low literacy districts with more than 25% ST population and less than 35% female literacy rate as per 2001 Census. Further, tribal blocks other than 54 identified districts, which fulfil the said criteria are also covered, with priority given to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs) and Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The Scheme is implemented through VoluntaryOrganisations/NGOs as well as autonomous societies/institutions of State Governments/UTs and provide for only hostel at Block level for increasing regular, middle and secondary school attendance and primary school attendance at Panchayat level forupto 150 and 100 girls at each level respectively.  100% assistance is provided by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for free education, boarding and lodging, books and uniforms, medical health, coaching incentives, awards, etc.  29272 and 21146 beneficiaries were covered involving financial outlay of Rs.40.00 lakhs and Rs.33.50 lakhs in 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively.
• A number of programmes for skill upgradation of women are being run by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Labour, Mission of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, etc. (PIB Features)

Skill upgradation:

Support to Training & Employment Programme for Women (STEP), a Central Sector Scheme launched in 1986-87, seeks to upgrade skill of poor and assetless women and provide employment on sustainable basis by mobilizing them in viable cooperative groups, strengthening marketing linkages, support services and access to credit.   The scheme also provides for enabling support services in the form of health check-ups, legal and health literacy, elementary education, gender sensitization and mobile crèches. The ultimate endeavour of each project is to develop the group to thrive on a self-sustaining basis in the market place with minimal governmental support and intervention even after the project period is over.  Since inception, around 250 projects have been provided financial assistance under the scheme.

The ten traditional sectors identified for project funding under STEP comprise of agriculture, animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms, handicrafts, khadi and village industries, sericulture, waste land development and social forestry. The scope and coverage of the scheme is being broadened with introduction of locally appropriate sectors being identified and incorporated into the scheme.

Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG) – ‘Sabla’, a Centrally-sponsored scheme was approved by the Government on 16.8.2010. The scheme is being implemented in 200 districts across the country on a pilot basis. In the remaining districts, Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) continues to be operational as before.  However, SABLA has completely replaced Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls (NPAG) as all districts of NPAG are now part of the SABLA. The scheme, interalia, aims at vocational training for girls above 16 years of age for their economic empowerment.

Sabla is being implemented through the State Governments/UTs with 100 per cent financial assistance from the Central Government for all inputs other than nutrition provision for which 50 % Central assistance to States is provided. Anganwadi Centre is the focal point for the delivery of the services.

Objectives:

i.            Life Skill Education and accessing public services,

ii.            Vocational training for girls aged 16 and above under National Skill Development Program (NSDP)

iii.            The successful implementation of SABLA requires convergence with development activities/schemes of other Departments such as Health, Education, Youth Affairs, Labour, PRIs etc.

iv.            Nearly 100 lakh adolescent girls per annum are expected to be benefitted under the scheme. Against the allocation of Rs. 350 crorefor the year 2010-11, a sum of Rs. 330 crore (approx.) has been released to States/UTs. The year 2011-12 will be the first complete year of implementation of the scheme after which the physical and financial achievements made vis-à-vis the target would be assessed. A sum of Rs. 750 crore has been allocated for Sabla for 2011-12.

Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB)- In order to address the socio-economic needs of the women and children of selected eight most backward districts in the North Eastern region in the economic arena, Central Social Welfare Board has formulated the Integrated Scheme for Women Empowerment (ISWE). The scheme is being implemented on pilot basis since 2008 and has the objective of meeting the felt needs of the area by mobilizing community action, converging available services and resources of the area, income generation through feasible and sustainable activities for women and to provide services for health awareness, career counseling vocational training, preventing child trafficking and other social evils.

Economic Improvement:

National Mission for Empowerment of Women- The extent of empowerment of women from a holistic and macro-point of view is largely determined by 3 factors viz. economic, social and political identity. These factors are deeply intertwined and linked with many cross cutting linkages. It implies that if efforts in any one dimension remains absent or week, the outcome and momentum generated by the other components cannot be sustained. It is only when all these three factors are addressed simultaneously and made compatible with each other can women be truly empowered. Therefore, for the holistic empowerment of women, an inter-sectoral approach has to be adopted. The vision for socio-economic empowerment of women is to empower women economically and socially to end exploitation and discrimination enabling them to develop their full potential to be active participants in nation building, sharing the benefits of economic growth and prosperity. To achieve this vision, the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) was launched on 8th March. The objectives of the Mission are to:

I.                                       Ensure economic empowerment of women,

II.                                       Ensure that violence against women is eliminated progressively,

III.                                       Ensure empowerment of women with emphasis on health and education,

IV.              Oversee gender mainstreaming of programmes, policies, institutional arrangements and processes of participating Mininstries, institutions and organizations, and

V.              Undertake awareness generation as well as advocacy activities to fuel the demand for benefits under various schemes and progreammesand create, if required, structures at district, tehsil and village level with the involvement of Panchayats foe their fulfillment.

Economic Empowerment of Women is to be achieved through convergence of the schemes and programmes having focus on formation and promotion of SHGs so as to enable women to have access to micro credit and micro finance. Programmes like National Rural Livelihood Mission (erstwhile SGSY) of MoRD, Smayamsidha of MWCD and similar programmes of other Ministries and organizations would need to be converged to help the identified SHGs in a coordinated fashion. The Mission would see that access to credit by women SHGs under schemes of NABARD, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, Financial institutions like NSCFDC/ NBCFDC/ NSKFDC of MoSJ&E and nationalized banks, is coordinated well and delivery of credit is timely.

In order to promote self employment opportunities and create livelihood options for women, it would ensure that training and skillupgradation under schemes/ programmes of MoS&ME, MoL&E ,MoRD, MWCD etc. are available to the women beneficiaries of SHGs and that there is no duplication of errors. Sustainability of income generation activities by women would be looked at and they would be ensured provision of adequate forward, backward and horizontal linkages. The relevant programmes of NABARD, RMK and participating Ministries as well as organizations with components of processing, storage, distribution and market networks would be put in a convergent mode to strengthen the livelihood of women.

The existing monitoring systems in place at the state and district levels would be utilized by the National Mission for tracking the effectiveness of convergence efforts in the area of economic empowerment. While at the district level, the District Collector as per the existing arrangement of the DRDA would be responsible for monitoring convergence efforts at the district level, the Chief Secretary of the State Government with technical inputs from the State Resource Centre to be set up for women (SRCW) will be made responsible at the state level. At the national level national level, the National Mission Authority (NMA) will be responsible for overall monitoring of actionable agenda requiring convergence and for which it will take the inputs from both the Mission Directorate and the National Resource Centre for Women (NRCW).

Rashtriya Mahila Kosh - (National Credit Fund for Women)

The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (National Credit Fund for Women) was set up in 1993 with a corpus of Rs. 31 crore, against the backdrop of socio-economic constraints faced by poor women to access micro – credit from the formal financial system in the country, especially those in the rural and in unorganized sectors. The principal corpus has increased to Rs.100.00 crore by 2009-10.  The main objective of setting up of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) under the Department of Women and Child Development (now Ministry) was to provide micro-credit to poor women for various livelihood support and income generating activities at concessional terms in a client-friendly procedure to bring about their socio-economic development. The RMK is now being restructured as a NBFC with a corpus of Rs.500.00 crore.  Till 31.3.2011, 6, 87,512 women beneficiaries have been sanctioned Rs.307.52 crore and disbursed Rs.251.82 crore.  However, with the proposed induction of funds and conversion to NBFC, the projected yearly number of beneficiaries and loans are at the end of five year period in FY 2015-16 is likely to be 2,19,500 and Rs.492.02 crorerespectively.   Thus, there would be a quantum jump in the business volume of the organization through this restructuring.  Further, the fact that RMK extends loan upto maximum of 18 per cent interest per annum to SHGs/beneficiaries as against loans disbursed to beneficiaries through Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) under the NABARD’s SHG – Bank  Linkage Programme at the interest rate ranging between 30 and 40 per cent per annum and even higher and 60 to 70 percent rate charged by traditional moneylenders, would mean that the impact by way of higher incomes and welfare of the beneficiaries at  such an expanded scale of finance and at affordable rate, would be much more pronounced.

An RMK sponsored ‘Impact Study ‘ of 2008 shows 84% beneficiaries from rural areas and 16% from urban areas had undertaken activities like Animal husbandry (41%), Petty Shops (19%) and Agriculture (17%).  Their monthly income has increased between Rs.2000/- and Rs.4000/-.  54% reported increase in household expenditure, 96% reported improvement in food consumption pattern, and 87% reported increase in household assets.  Access to medical facility increased for majority of beneficiaries (88%).  There was increase in social status of 87% of beneficiaries.  98% women beneficiaries reported increase in their self-confidence and security with increased income through RMK.  Majority (95%) of the beneficiaries reported improvement in their standard of living and participation in micro finance led to decrease in domestic violence.

Gender Budgeting and Economic Empowerment of Women-

Budgets, which influence the overall level of national income and employment and reflect the priorities of the government regarding public investment, also promote gender equality within the national development framework.  The Government of India is committed to promoting gender equality and has adopted Gender Budgeting (GB) as a tool to address the inequalities faced by women. The purpose is to ensure the translation of Government’s policy commitments on gender equity into budgetary allocations.

To institutionalize the process of Gender Budgeting, the Government had initiated the formation of Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) within all Central Ministries/ Departments in 2005. These Cells are required to take up evaluation of existing Government programmes and schemes from a gender perspective and identify new areas of intervention for addressing the existing gender gaps. The flow of funds under certain women specific schemes/programmes are also being monitored through a Gender Budget Statement (Statement 20) as a part of the Union Budget Document since 2005.

MWCD, as the nodal agency, is pursuing with other Ministries/Departments to build their capacity so as to integrate gender concerns across sectors/schemes/programmes/ and ensure proper allocation and/or reprioritization of resources.  The number of Ministries reflecting their allocations in the Gender Budget Statement have gone up from nine in 2005-06 to 29 in 2011-12, with a magnitude of Gender Budget (BE) increasing from Rs.14379.00 crore (2.79%) in 2005-06 to Rs.78251.00 crore (6.22%) in 2011-12.

Support services:

Hostel for Working Women-

a. The Scheme of Working Women Hostel envisages provision of safe and affordable hostel accommodation to working women, single working women, women working at places away from their home-towns and for women being trained for employment.

The scheme has been revised with following salient features:

• Financial assistance for construction of hostel building to be given only on public land.
• Financial assistance available for rent of the hostels which are run in rented premises also.
• Provision for maintenance grant of hostel building (maximum Rs.5lakh) and one-time non-recurring grant for furnishings (@ Rs.7500 per beneficiary).
• State Government agencies, Urban Municipal Bodies, Cantonment Boards, Civil Society Organizations, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Self Help Groups, Recognized Colleges/Universities, and Corporate or associations like CII, ASSOCHAM and FICCI have been included under the revised scheme.
• The State Governments have been advised to disseminate and send project proposals as per the revised guidelines the Scheme. Since its inception in 1972-73, 890 hostels have been sanctioned under the scheme all over the country benefiting about 66,000 working women.

b. Working Women Hostel at Jasola, New Delhi: In view of increasing incidents of assault on women from the North-eastern States, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had undertaken construction of a working women hostel in the year 2008-09 exclusively for the working women of North East region working in and around Delhi. The construction of the hostel building at Jasola, New Delhi, has been completed in this current year. The six storied hostel building is having 167 living rooms with a capacity to accommodate 500 working women. This hostel also has provision of a day care centre for the children of working mothers.

Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme-With a view to encourage women to join/ continue with gainful employment, Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for children of working mothers (RGNCS) was introduced in 2006. The scheme seeks to provide day care facilities to children in the age group 0-6 years from families with a monthly income of less than Rs. 12,000/-. In addition to being a safe space for the children, the crèche provide services like supplementary nutrition,pre school education, emergency health care etc.

The scheme provides for grant of Rs.3532/- per month for a crèche, limited to 90% of the schematic pattern or actual expenditure whichever is less, and the remaining expenditure is borne by the implementing agencies. Honorarium to crèche workers is fully funded under the scheme. Funds are separately provided to the implementing agencies for one time training of crèche workers.

The Central Sector scheme is implemented through Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) and two national level mother NGOs i.e. Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) and Bharatiya  Adimjati Sevak  Sangh (BAJSS).

Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) – Conditional Maternity Benefit (CMB) scheme is a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating women to contribute to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers.  It is being implemented initially on pilot basis in 52 selected districts using the platform of ICDS. IGMSY is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme introduced in the FY 2010-11, under which the grant-in-aid is released to States/UTs.  The Scheme envisages providing cash directly to P&L women during pregnancy and lactation in response to individual fulfilling specific conditions. It would address short term income support objectives with long term objective of behaviour and attitudinal change.  The scheme attempts to partly compensate for wage loss to pregnant & lactating women both prior to and after delivery of the child.

Unfortunately developed countries and fast developing countries have low women representation in their respective legislatures.In the most powerful and most advanced nation of the world the United States , women constitute only 17 percent of legislature .The scientifically advanced nation like Japan can not atleast claim to be at the top in providing women due share in political power . In the world’s largest democracy of the world, India, women’s representation is meagre ten percent. But in a country like mozambique, a nation ravaged and pillaged by unending civil war and unabated famine like conditions, women constitute more than 30 percent of the legislature. In South Africa too, the country which was under brutal racist regime, women has more than 30 percent representation. These international experiences reveal that industrial development, economic prosperity and scientific progress do not automatically lead to political empowerment of women.

What difference does it make if more number of women are in parliament or state legislatures. Will it alter the nature of governance? This question can be countered in two ways. First, democracy is the most representative form of political organization the human civilization has heralded so far. There is no meaning of democracy when women who constitute nearly half of the population, have only eight percent representation. Due representation for women shall deepen the democratic process. Second, several studies have revealed that women in general are more responsive to issues of human development. According to the UNDP Human Development Report, India ranks 127 among 177 countries. Women suffer more than men due to lack of education, health, hygiene, sanitation, drinking water, nutrition etc. As a result, women are generally more concerned about these issues. Greater representation for women shall ensure a shift in the focus of development agenda towards human development and social development.

Women’s reservations will help those coming from influential political families. The ordinary women folk cannot avail this facility. This argument is partly true. But one should keep in mind the simple truth that law alone cannot change the society. But a conducive legislative atmosphere is essential for a progressive social change. It is true that influential people would utilize these reservations at the beginning. But in due course political leadership will emerge .This is also the experience with scheduled caste and scheduled tribe reservations. At the initial stage landlords have fielded their henchmen and enjoyed power by proxy. But the things have changed substantially over a period of time. If we closely look at Indian politics, we would notice two discernible trends. First, women who have entered politics might have used their family background at the beginning. But during the course of their political career they have emerged as political leaders on their own. Indira Gandhi was a shining example of such a trend. Her critics also accept that she was a leader with great political skills. Infact there are women political leaders who have grown in their political career without any influential family background. Uma Bharati, Mamata Banerjee are examples of such a trend. Therefore it is wrong to oppose women’s reservations on the ground that it will lead to deedhi, beebhi, bethi syndrome (sister, wife or daughters of influential political leaders getting benefited by these reservations).

The most important reason for stalling this bill is on the ground that these reservations would alter the social composition of parliament and legislatures. Some political parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Samajwadi Party, etc are opposing the bill in its present form that it would benefit upper caste women. As a result, the composition of backward castes, minorities would be adversely affected. Such a possibility can not be ruled out. However, opposing on this ground is uncalled for. No law is final. Every law is evolved over a period of time. Women as social category suffer discrimination cutting across caste, class, religion in our society. We can begin with women’s reservations and in case the experience reveals that upper caste women are getting disproportionately higher share, the law can be suitably amended. Infact, the backward castes ( obc’s) constitute nearly one fourth of Indian parliament. This is a result of social churning process underway in Indian polity and society. In Indian politics, caste is an important criteria for selection of candidates. If a particular constituency is reserved for women, a backward caste woman shall replace a backward caste man as a candidate.

In view of these objections, several alternate measures are being suggested. The most important among them is to amend the Proportional Representation Act to mandate every political party to field women in at least one third of the constituencies. This seems to be an intelligent solution. But a closer scrutiny of the proposal reveals its true character. If this proposal is implemented as an alternative, political parties driven by patriarchal values, would field women in the constituencies they know they would loose in all probability. As a result, there will be one third of women contestants, but not one third of women in parliament and legislatures. But an amendment is suggested to prevent such a misuse. According to this amendment, every political party has to field women in at least in one third of seats in every state in parliamentary elections. Similarly, every political party has to field women candidates in at least one third of seats in every district in case of assembly elections. But, this amendment is not a complete solution to the possibility of misuse. Every political party can easily identify weaker seats and field women in those seats. It is in fact difficult to implement such a proposal in the era of coalitions, as all political parties do not contest all the seats. Yet an another alternative being suggested is that there shall be dual membership in one third of seats. Apart from a general member, in these one third seats, there will be a women member too. But this is not political empowerment of women as women’s status will be mere titular in nature. The real power would be wielded by the general member only.

Some of the other alternate proposals are as follows:

Instead of one third, we can begin with 10 or 15 percent and subsequently increase it. Those who are propose this alternative are questioning whether there is any sanctity for demanding one third. But such a proposal would defeat the aspirations of women’s movement. There may not be any arithmetical sanctity for the demand, but reserving one third of seats would mean a substantial increase from the present level of representation and shall be relatively proportionate to the women’s share in the population. Any attempt to dilute this proportion is absolutely undemocratic. The other proposals are also equally undemocratic. For instance, yet an another proposal is to keep the present strength untouched and create one third supernumerary seats and reserve them for women. But anyone who knows arithmetic would understand that this would not be one third. But it will be much less than that. In fact all such alternatives are a result of lack of political will on the part of our political party system as a whole. The often quoted argument for not fielding sufficient number of women candidates is the winnability factor. This argument lacks conviction given the fact that women constitute around 12 percent of Rajyasabha seats .The low level of women’s representation in the Rajyasabha provide an ample reflection of abysmal lack of commitment of our political system to the goal of political empowerment of women.

Therefore, the only alternative is to implement the commitment to enact women’s reservation bill. The act can be amended accordingly based on the experiences. In several countries of the world including that of advanced nations too, women have to struggle to get even voting right. But in India women got the right to vote as democratic India granted universal adult franchise with the dawn of independence itself. Let the Indian democracy create history once again by providing women the constitutional guarantee to adequate political representation.

EXPANDING

URBAN OPERATIONS

The penetration of micro finance institutions (MFIs) into the lower middle and working class neighbourhoods of Delhi began in the second half of the last decade. The expansion of these can be seen by their growth in the last three years. For example, Ujjivan Financial Services started its operations in 2008 and grew by ten times by the time of its last returns in March 2011. In the area of our survey itself, the company reported about 3000 members in Mangolpuri and 2000 members in Sultanpuri in March 2011, one year after it started its operations. In other areas like Narela and Jahangirpuri it showed a membership of 3000 and 4000 respectively by March 2011.  This is only one of the six big companies operating in the area visited by the surveyors. The others are SKS Microfinance, Share Micro Finance, Janalakshmi Financial Services, Basix (in partnership with Smriddhi) and Bandana, for whose operations the exact figures are unavailable at present.

The growth of MFI credit operations in the last five years has been facilitated by the failure of the central and state government’s model of micro finance to solve the problems of the urban poor. From the mid-1990s the National Bank for Rural Development (NABARD) had pioneered the self-help group bank linkage programme in the rural areas. By March 2010, about 6.7 lakh bank linked groups had been formed and only about 83,000 existed in the urban areas. In Delhi the total number of bank linked groups was about 2,047. The urban self employment under which the Delhi government promoted self help groups of poor women had only managed to form 43 self help groups and thereby benefit 481 women from 1997-2010.  Most of the other bank linked groups were formed by NGOs whose estimated number operating in the city was about 400-500, and who provided loans at interest rates of 25-28 per cent. This evidence shows that the government’s strategy of financial inclusion has had limited or virtually no impact in urban areas.

CLASS

FACTOR

The MFIs in the area are characterised by the fact that they only give loans to women, and usually refuse loans to any other male member of the family. The loans are given in the name of supporting self employment, but are almost never used in income generation activities. As one woman in K bloc of Mangolpuri said, “We have to say that we are going to take money for self employment and work otherwise we will not get any loans. But the truth is that most women in this area that I know use this loan for their other needs like health, marriage or any other requirement in the family.” They do this because loans from other informal sources were taken at a higher interest rate than those from micro finance institutions. As another woman from L Block stated, “Sometimes we take loans from local people (shop keepers etc) of Rs 300 hundred for ten days and pay an interest of Rs 100 over this amount”. Thus poor women with unstable livelihoods and low incomes only go to MFIs because they have no other option.

But there were exceptions to such cases, from a slightly higher income group. Of all the women interviewed in the area, only three or four of them were actually taking loans for investing in their small businesses. However such women came from a relatively higher income group, one of whom runs a training centre for tailoring and earns about Rs 10,000 per month on her own. She also has some properties to her name. Another woman runs a garment business and gets piece rated work done from other women. Thus the family income and class is an important deciding factor in deciding how much a woman benefits from her loan. Clearly those who earn good money and have running businesses find borrowing from MFIs a viable option.

THE COSTS OF

BORROWING

Most of the loans are given to women in groups of five or ten known as joint liability groups (JLG). The system of lending starts with small loans and interest rates ranging from 23 to 28 per cent. For example the first loan given by Ujjivan is of Rs 10,000 and has an interest rate of 26 per cent. If the woman repays this loan successfully than she is given another loan for Rs 15,000 and a third loan for Rs 21,000. The interest rates for the second and third loan may reduce depending on the record of repayment of the borrower, but they are never less than 23 per cent. Similarly SKS Micro finance lends at the rate of 26 per cent, and Bandana lends at the rate of 21-24 per cent or more depending on the nature and extent of loan taken. Interest rates were less than 23 per cent in only two cases where women had been borrowing continuously and larger amounts for their businesses. These businesses employing other women were given loans of 18-20 per cent in the fourth year of their borrowing. Hence, those who demonstrated a stable livelihood were paying lesser interest than the poorer women who had low incomes, once again demonstrating the socially unjust methods of this system.

But a deeper study of the interest shows, that the interest rates mentioned by the agent on the woman’s loan card are far less than the actual cost being incurred by the borrower. It is these additional costs that are the real source of the profits of the MFIs. Every woman paid a one time cost of Rs 150-200 at the time of borrowing the loan. As one woman told us, part of this money goes to the agent who mobilises the borrowers. Apart from this SKS India takes Rs 20 per month for insurance where as other companies took Rs 200 per year as insurance. This money has never been recovered by any borrower even when they encountered an accident. Domestic workers from Sultanpuri stated that they were refused loans when they asked for their insurance money to be returned. Women can also take ‘emergency’ loans from the company at a monthly interest rate of 10 per cent.

REPAYMENT WOES &

FRAUDULENT AGENTS

But in addition to this, it is the punishing repayment schedule, the ‘agent’ system that is the main source of exploitation of the women. Most loans are for durations of ten to eleven months with weekly repayment schedules. Payments are usually made to the agents of the company. In many cases these agents are young boys who are employed for this purpose. Neighbourhood women with good capacity to mobilise borrowers are also made agents and given commissions. The agents are meant to take weekly instalments and deposit them in the company’s office where they are entered into the computer against the name of the borrower. In this system, the women sometimes end up paying one instalment twice. Like one woman from Sultanpuri explained “We were regularly paying our instalments to the agent of the SKS company. But when we went to close the loan in the SKS office, the person there insisted that some instalments had not been paid.” This means that many a times the women are forced to pay their instalments for a second time. In another case the agent from Basix – Smriddhi insisted that the women had not paid up their full instalment and cut Rs 800 extra from her security deposit of Rs 1400 before closing the loans. There are also rare cases where agents attempted to run away with the money of the women. As another woman from Sultanpuri narrated, two boys of SKS ran away with Rs 32,000 of thirty women. Since these agents were known through local contacts, the women got together and have so far recovered Rs 10,000 from the agent. They have also resolved to continue the fight to get back the rest of the money.

When asked about how they manage to pay weekly instalments they state that they often have to take loans to pay instalments. In one case a woman from Mangolpuri had kept her fridge, two cylinders and all other household goods as collateral with a local neighbour in order to borrow money to pay her dues. She almost had an empty house. Sometimes these companies also force the women to deposit some of their home electronics or valuables as deposits if they or their joint liability groups are unable to repay the instalment. In another instance a woman from Sultanpuri reported that agents from Basix – Smriddhi had threatened to get goons to her house if she did not pay her instalment in time. She had to borrow money from her neighbours and make the payment. This pressure of timely repayment has reinforced rather than broken the vicious debt-trap in which the women find themselves. It has also created a cycle of continuous indebtedness on which the country wide survey by the AIDWA may throw greater light in the coming days.

BREAKING THE UNITY OF

WORKING CLASS WOMEN

Social networking and pressure are the main strategies used by the MFIs to contact new borrowers and also use social pressure to recover money. Most of the women come in contact with MFIs through people who they have known in some social context or the other. They also form JLGs with other women who are either their relatives or neighbours. One crucial difference between these JLGs and other self help groups is that the groups formed by the MFIs do not require any savings by the women. Rather these groups act as guarantors for individual loans granted to women. This means that all women in a particular group certify that they will repay each others loans in case the woman is not able to pay her instalment. Such an obligation puts the every day relationships of women under tremendous pressure. When a woman fails to pay her instalment she gets into conflict with other women and is some times forced to withdraw from her daily social interactions. Thus one woman narrated how she is now confined to her house and has stopped meeting her friends because she will be hounded by women to pay up her dues.

Hence we see that the experience of JLGs poses a challenge for the democratic women’s movement. The earlier experience of self help groups formed and run by the democratic women’s movements in other states was that they fostered a unity amongst women and prepared them for further struggles. In contrast the JLGs sow the seeds of conflict rather than unity amongst women. They also have the potential to force them into a debt trap and attempt to make them permanently dependent on MFIs, the new money lenders of the neo-liberal era. In this context pressure needs to be put on governments to extend its SHG-bank linkage programme to urban areas. This will help women to access cheap credit, marketing and training facilities so that they can pursue sustainable alternatives for income generation.  The women’s movement also needs to strategise how the formation of self help groups can further the campaign against the coercive and unfair practices of the MFIs and further the struggle for a more socially just credit system.

The status of women in India has been undergoing a sea-change. Supported by Constitutional guarantees to ensure dignity and equal opportunities, their active participation in all walks of life including education, politics, sport etc., has been growing. Taking note of women’s role in the nation-building activities, the Government had declared 2001 as the year of Women’s Empowerment by adopting a National Policy to offer “Swashakti” to women. Several laws have also been adopted to empower women socially, economically, legally and politically. Considering the role of rural India, the country’s backbone, the Government had taken several measures to strengthen Pachayanti Raj system with the active participation of women. This gave a boost to increase the number of women being elected to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, an indication to suggest their political empowerment.

National Policy for the Empowerment of Women – 2001

The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles of State Policy. The Constitution not only guarantees equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women. Since the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-78), India has been making a marked shift in its approach to women’s issues from welfare to development while keeping the empowerment of women as the central issue in determining their status in the society. The National Commission for Women was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women. The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in 1993 have provided for reservation of seats in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision-making at the local levels. India has also ratified various international conventions and human rights instruments committing to secure equal rights of women. Key among them is the ratification of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1993.

Goals and Objectives

The goals of the National Policy is to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women. The objectives include creating an environment through positive economic and social policies for development of women to enable them to realise their full potential, access to health care, quality education, employment, equal remuneration and social security. They also include elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against women and the girl child and changing societal attitudes.

National Mission for Empowerment of Women

The Government has set up a National Mission for Empowerment of Women early this year and the same has been notified on 8th of March, 2010. The Mission aims at implementing the women-centric programmes in a mission mode to achieve better coordination. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is administering the Support to Training and Employment Programme of Women (STEP) scheme with a view to help assetless and marginalised women become economically self-reliant. The scheme also aims at providing training for skill upgradation, development of entrepreneurial skills, asset creation, mobilisation into small viable groups to enable beneficiaries to take up employment-cum-income generation activities.The Ministry has also launched the “Priyadarshini” scheme to empower vulnerable groups of women in a holistic and sustainable manner by addressing their social, political, legal, health related and economic problems through vigorous capacity-building by organising them into Self-Help Groups (SHGs).

Swarjjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

The Ministry is also implementing the Centrally sponsored scheme. The scheme is desinged to promote self-employment oriented income generating activities for the BPL households in the rural areas. Special safeguards have been provided for vulnerable sections by way of reserving 50 per cent benefits to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 40 per cent for women, 15 per cent for minorities and 3 per cent for disabled persons. Since its inception, about 37 lakh SHGs have been formed and 134 lakh swarozgaris assisted, out of which, approximately 70 lakh (52 per cent) are women. The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) scheme extends micro-credit support for income generation to poor women grouped into SHGs in unorganised sector.

India Vision 2020

India Vision 2020 document, while discussing about women in the labour force has, inter alia, mentioned that secure child care support services are necessary for working women. The 11th Five Year Plan document of the Planning Commission incorporated various schemes and programmes for women and child development. It also mentions about the setting up of creches in unorganised sector and restructuring and revamping of the existing Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for the children of working mothers.

Helplines for Women

As per 2001 census, there are 34.3 million widows and 2.34 million divorced and separated women in the country. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing shelter-based schemes namely “Swadhar” and “Short Stay Homes” under which financial assistance is provided to the implementing agencies for providing support services to women in difficult circumstances. Under the scheme of Integrated Programme for Older persons implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, financial assistance is provided to NGOs for running and maintenance of Multi Facility Care Centre for older widowed women. The Ministry of Rural Development is implementing Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme (IGNWPS) and Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS), under which central assistance is given towards a monthly pension of Rs.200 to widows below the poverty line in the age group of 40 to 64.

Women’s Leadership Summit 2010

The Ministry has organised a Women’s Leadership Summit in New Delhi on 6th of March this year as part of the celebrations for the International Women’s Day. The objective of the Summit, inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, was to showcase empowered women, those who had excelled in different fields. The central theme of the Summit was Inclusive Growth and Empowering Women of Rural India. Several women achievers spoke on challenges and opportunities for women in diverse fields such as corporate sector, financial services, agriculture, science, media, panchayati raj, sports, culture, education and law. Government’s 100 Days Action Plan

As part of the 100 days Action Plan, the government had proposed several measures to increase the representation of women. It has also proposed Constitutional amendment to provide 50 percent reservation for women in Panchayats and in urban local bodies and to increase the representation of women in government jobs.

India’s Tirade Against Anti-Woman Activities

The Government has been adopting several stringent measures to uphold the status of women in India by launching a tirade against injustices done to them. They included protection against domestic violence, stopping crime against child and women, human trafficking, sexual harassment at work place, eliminating beggary among women and street children, child marriages, harassment in dowry related matters, malnutrition among women and children, providing relief and rehabilitation to rape victims. The Centre has allocated Rs.11,000 crore to the Ministry of Women and Child Development for the year 2010-11, an increase of around 50 per cent over last year’s Budget Estimates of Rs.7,350 crore. (PIB Features).

Other woman issues

Salient Features

50:50 per cent sharing between the Centre and the States of nutrition provision (600 calories and 18 to 29 gram of protein) at the rate of Rs.5 per beneficiary per day for 300 days a year for 11 to 14 years out of school girls and all girls in the age of 15 to 18 years. A provision of Rs.3.8 lakh per ICDS project per annum has been made for various components of the scheme like training kit at each Angawadi center, National Health Education, Life Skill Education, purchase of Iron Folic Acid Tablet for mothers. Continuation of Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) in remaining districts from funds of SABLA and utilization of savings available under KSY and RGSEAG-SABLA in 200 districts are the other salient features of the Scheme.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has formulated the SABLA scheme to address multi-dimensional problems of adolescent girls between 11 to 18 years. An allocation of Rs.1,000 crore for the scheme in 2010-11. The Government has approved a cumulative 7075 ICDS projects and 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres across the country. Of these, a total of 7012 projects and 13.67 lakh AWCs have been sanctioned as on 31st of May 2010. Out of the approved ICDS, 6560 are operational. Keeping in view the expansion under the Scheme, the allocation for ICDS was enhanced from the Budget Estimates of Rs. 6,705 crore to Rs. 8162 crore for the year 2009-10. For the year 2010-11, an allocation of Rs. 8700 crore has been made, which is higher than the allocation of the previous year.

Survey On Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the key issue. The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) has carried out sample surveys on diet and nutritional status of rural (2005-06) and tribal population (2007-09) in 9 states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. As per the report of 2001-03 by the Registrar General of India on causes of deaths among 0 to 4 years due to nutritional deficiencies is 2.8 per cent. As per the National Family Health Survey, the underweight children below three years of age has declined from 42.7 per cent in 1988-99 to 40.4 per cent in 2005-06. However, there has been an increase in the anemia levels as anemia in children (6 months to 35 months) has risen from 74.3 per cent to 78.9 per cent. Similarly in women aged 15 to 49 years, the anemia has increased from 51.8 per cent to 56.2 per cent. Though malnutrition is not a major cause of infant death, it can increase morbidity and mortality by reducing resistance to infections. As per the Sample Registration System (SRS), Registrar General of India, the infant Mortality Rate has declined from 57 per thousand live births in 2006 to 53 per thousand live births in the year 2008.

A number of measures has been taken by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare like Supply of Vitamin-A supplementation for children till the age of 5 years, Iron Folic Acid supplementation for children up to 10 years, pregnant and lactating women, promotion of iodized salt, zinc supplementation for treatment of diarrhea in children above two months.

Combating Malnutrition

The problem of malnutrition is a multi-faceted and multi-sectoral in nature requiring coordination and convergence between the different sectors and at all levels. The Government, which has been according high priority to the overall issue of malnutrition and particularly in respect of children, adolescent girls and women is implementing several schemes, which have an impact on the nutritional status of the people. These schemes besides ICDS projects include, Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) and Nutritional Programme for Adolescent Girls (NPAG), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDM), Drinking Water and Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), Swarjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) and Public Distribution System (PDS). The ICDS scheme provides a package of six services – supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services. Three of the services (immunization, health check up and referral services) are delivered through the public health system of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Government has taken various steps, which include universalisation of the scheme with special focus on SC/ST and minority habitations, revision in cost norms as well as the Nutritional and Feeding norms of the Supplementary Nutrition component of ICDS. The Centre has adopted the standards proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 15th of August 2008 to identify malnutrition in children. The National Nutrition Policy of 1993 and the National Nutrition Action Plan of 1995 envisage establishment of State Nutrition Councils in the states. This has been emphasized during the meetings held with the States. Recently, the Chief Secretaries of all states have been addressed to ensure that the State Nutrition Action Plans factor in the availability of services provided at AWCs under the ICDS and also ensure that expansion is undertaken in a manner that it meets inter-alia the nutritional and health demands of the beneficiaries particularly the marginalized sections in areas having high incidence of poverty and deprivation. The Women & Child Development Ministry has considered a Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme for Maternity Benefits called Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) on a pilot basis to provide cash transfers to pregnant and lactating women in response to fulfilling specific conditions. The objective of the scheme is to improve the health and nutrition status of pregnant and lactating women. A budget allocation of Rs.390 crore has been made for the scheme during the current financial year. (PIB Features)

*Freelance Writer

The hollow claims being made by the UPA- II government regarding “inclusive” growth stand thoroughly exposed by these grim statistics. There can be no celebration about the rise in the overall sex ratios, when the impact of this consistent decline threatens to undermine whatever gains are being touted. What is more, it also raises fundamental questions about the government policies and interventions, which have obviously done little to redress the imbalance in child sex ratios, but rather, have contributed to aggravating the situation further.

To address the underlying issues, and chalk out a plan of action, a joint meeting was organised by AIDWA, and the Indian Schoolfor Women’s Studies and Development (ISWSD), in New Delhi on April 30, 2011.

Many prominent academicians, and members of ISWSD  including – Rajni Palriwala,  Indu Agnihotri, Malini Bhattacharya, Professor Mohan Rao and representatives from organisations like Sama, Young Women’s Christian Association, Students’ Federation of India, Working Women’s Co-ordination Committee (CITU)and All India Kisan Sabha etc, participated in the meeting, which was presided over by AIDWA vice president Kirti Singh.

AIDWA activists and leaders from the states of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal  placed their state experiences, as part of an organisational meeting. Kiran Moghe, AIDWA national secretary and Jagmati Sangwan, AIDWA vice president gave graphic accounts of the struggles undertaken in Maharashtra and Haryana to force the administration to implement the PcPNDT Act. They raised many serious questions about the political commitment of the government to enforce it.  A draft resolution was placed by AIDWA general secretary, Sudha Sundararaman, which was greatly enriched and strengthened by the ensuing discussion.

The meeting unequivocally came to the conclusion that the fall in child sex ratio represented a damning indictment of the policies of the UPA-II government and an exposure of its utter failure to implement the PcPNDT Act.

FERTILITY DECLINE &

DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

The aggressive “population stabilisation” programme, preceded by the family planning drive launched by successive governments have contributed to the sharp decline in child sex ratios. This is because smaller families are being propagated and popularised within a highly patriarchal and gender discriminatory social construct. Parents too now wish to have less number of children, but, the fall in growth rate of population after decades of stagnation appears to have been achieved primarily at the cost of the girl child. When parents decide to have one child, or two children, the preference is for the son- even without sex selective abortions. In a state likePunjab, it was observed during field research that families with one son prefer not to have another child at all!

Though the two child norm has been formally given up, many states continue to implement it, with incentives and disincentives still being included in different ways. Women with more than two children cannot contest panchayat elections in some states. InMaharashtra, the Cong/ NCP government has passed a law that families with more than two children will have to pay one and a half times more for irrigation water.

Modern families want at least one son, and not more than one daughter – and methods to achieve this ideal are being resorted to without compunction. Indeed, surveys have shown that higher literacy figures and economic growth provide no guarantees against the crime of sex selection. It is in urbanised, fast growing metros that sex selective abortions are gaining popularity, and acceptance. In rural areas, the girl child is neglected after birth, her health needs are not attended to, and she is allowed to die. Such is the grim reality of aversion to daughters.

SEX SELECTIVE

ABORTIONS

Under the PcPNDT Act (1994) sex selection is illegal, and punishable. However, in reality sex selective abortions are being conducted with impunity. There is a well developed nexus between the medical profession, the technicians, and the large companies selling the ultra sound machines. This profitable market exists because of the unwillingness of the government to take stringent action against those violating the law.

When AIDWA did a sting operation in Pune district of Maharashtra against a leading doctor, it discovered that the Act had not even been notified in that district even ten years after the Act had been put into place! A similar lapse undermined the efficacy of the law in Haryana as well!

Collusion between the profit makers, corruption and the clout wielded by unethical and corrupt members of the medical profession (often supported by their associations) have rendered the Act toothless. Clinics get sealed due to our struggles, and then, are back in action within a short period.  So-called monitoring committees at all levels are dominated by those who are being monitored and activists, experts etc are conspicuous by their absence on these committees.

The “F” forms that should be analysed and monitored to identify wrongdoers are gathering dust in office rooms.

The Central Supervisory Board set up to monitor and oversee the implementation of the PcPNDT Act did not hold a single meeting over three years. It has been reconstituted recently, in a most non transparent manner. States too are following suit, which will render these bodies ineffective once more.

The linkages with the medical service as business are becoming more advanced, with the advent of newer and newer technologies. The phenomenal expansion in ART centres indicates what a lucrative business enterprise it has become- the potential for its misuse for sex pre selection is extremely high, but there is no regulation. Thus, there is a serious lack of political will in the implementation of the PcPNDT Act by the government.

SOME DISTURBING

QUESTIONS

Technology is not neutral. It was noted that the introduction of a “silent observer”- a hard disc placed in the ultrasound machine to monitor pregnancies more closely- in some states and regions is an unwanted intrusion that could lead to harassment and victimisation of the woman. Though proper screening and monitoring is important, the procedures for monitoring pregnancies cannot become an instrument for invasion into the privacy of individuals.

The numbers of ultra sound machines are increasing by the day, and there are now mobile clinics catering to outlying areas. Pregnant women are being subjected to a number of ultrasounds, for which there is no necessity, and indeed this can be harmful for the unborn baby, as declared by the radiologist’s association in the US. Privatisation is breeding a culture of excess screening and medical tests, a trend that is being exploited by the unscrupulous private health providers. A comprehensive legislation to safeguard public health rights must be formulated to address such concerns.

The discussion also highlighted the inefficacy of government schemes due to the many conditionalities that are being imposed on selection of beneficiaries, as also the stereotyped mindset that went into their formulation.

The participants noted that the neo liberal paradigm of development had led to devastating implications for women. They underscored the complex link between the market economy, and the erosion in women’s status. The agrarian crisis, and the consequent further devaluation of women’s work has led to her increased impoverishment and marginalisation. Unemployment and underemployment among women is high. The denial of nutrition and health care, made worse by the introduction of user fees in health institutions, the lack of a universal PDS, accompanied by a decline in the consumption of food grains, the repeated increase in prices of essential commodities, the huge increase in dowry, without property rights and asset creation for women – all these have created a matrix where the girl child is supremely unwanted. While dowry demands are escalating, property rights for girls are not implemented properly. In Haryana, the daughter who inherits property from the father is expected to sign over her share to her brothers- otherwise she is subjected to a great deal of harassment. The growing incidence of violence against women and girls transforms them into even more of a burden.

Thus, there are a plethora of factors leading to the girl child being killed or neglected to die before or after she is born, and it is necessary to address these comprehensively, for the government to arrest the decline in child sex ratios.

The meeting resolved to launch a nation-wide campaign and struggle highlighting the following issues:

• The government should implement the PcPNDT Act stringently and show political will to curb this crime.
• The Central Supervisory Board, and the equivalent state mechanisms, all the monitoring committees and appropriate authorities should comprise of members who have both knowledge of the law, and proven commitment to upholding the rights of girl children. All monitoring committees must be constituted properly. Swift punitive action should be taken against the offenders.
• The two child norm should be withdrawn with immediate effect, including all related incentives and disincentives.
• Existing schemes for girl children must be critically examined and reformulated such that they are universal and are not linked to any kind of conditionalities and stereotypes.
• Monitoring for proper implementation of the Act must not violate privacy rights of pregnant women.  The introduction of ‘silent observer’ in ultrasound machines should be reconsidered in this context.
• Rampant privatisation of public health care should be curbed with an umbrella legislation on healthcare.  Misuse of new technologies like the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) for sex selection should be prevented.

A call was given for state units of AIDWA to hold protest demonstrations and other programmes in the last week of May demanding proper implementation of the PcPNDT Act, and submit memorandums to the concerned authorities and officials on this issue.

In the Capital, there is an alarming rise in cases of gang-rapes, especially in moving cars. Recently a BPO employee from the North east was abducted at her doorstep when she returned home from work and gang-raped.Burning girls for dowry or killings in the name of honour are huge blots on the country’s so-called modern face. Education and the wider participation of women in the workforce may have led to their economic independence, but our patriarchal society still finds it difficult to digest that women have started voicing their views or making their own choices in life. If a girl refuses to marry the boy of her parents’ choice, she is butchered or tortured. There have been umpteen instances of young boys stabbing, shooting or throwing acid on girl’s faces because of rejection and when their advances are spurned.In the last one year itself, many shocking cases have come to light all over the country.These are just the tip of the iceberg since most cases go unreported for fear of reprisal and social humiliation. What’s more, some of the perpetrators of such crimes are elected representatives. In Bihar, a woman victim, teacher in a school, subjected to rape for several years, finally stabbed her perpetrator, an MLA, to death in broad daylight. In Banda, UP, a young Dalit girl mustered enough courage to file a rape complaint against a ruling party legislator. It is high time that the major political parties put the issue of crimes against women on their agenda, and not leave it to women’s organisations to do this.The National Crime Records Bureau data for 2009 revealed what had been suspected all along – that there was a rise in crimes against women with Delhi accounting for nearly 25 per cent of all rape cases. Many of those targeted for rape are young girls, either working or studying. At least these are the cases that get reported. For hundreds of women working in inhospitable conditions like brick kilns or construction, the stories are untold.As compared to 2008, there was a rise of 4.1 per cent in the number of crimes against women in the country. In 2008, a total of 195,856 cases were reported and this rose to 203,804 in 2009.

Crimes against women include rape, kidnapping and abduction, dowry death, torture, molestation, sexual harassment, importation of girls, immoral traffic and indecent representation of women.But on February 11 this year, at a national consultation on crimes against women, the Delhi Police Commissioner Sandeep Goel tried to debunk the theory that crimes against women had gone up. He pointed out that in 2005 658 rape cases were reported, but over a six-year period the figure had dropped to 507 in 2010. This figure was slightly higher than 2009 but lower than the previous years. He ratcheted off more statistics saying that the rape figure per lakh of population in Delhi was much lower than developed cities like New York. However, he was reminded that it was only the reported cases that were highlighted in the media and not the scores of unreported ones.What is shocking is not that the police commissioner sought to take solace in the very miniscule and marginal drop in the figures, but that there was not even the slightest admission of the problem. The fact that women and young girls feel more and more insecure in a city which was being showcased on the global ramp by the government during the Commonwealth Games, was completely lost on the police chief.There is no doubt that there has been a visible increase in the physical presence of women in general in public spaces and this has accompanied a greater intolerance towards them. It is also a fact that as more and more young people are exercising their democratic right under the Constitution of choosing their own partners, the reaction to their freedom is manifested in extreme violence, including killing of the concerned couple by their own parents and relatives. What is also disturbing is the total lack of social support to these youngsters. Often, close relatives of victims are found justifying such acts in the name of honour. These warped values were seen in one case in Delhi, where the four rapists in a gang rape case were arrested but their entire village came out in their support.The biggest setback comes when officers of the law and leading political parties do not take these issues seriously. They view them as mere incidents and refuse to see a pattern in the violence. They refuse to see how in the era of liberalization, crimes against women and minor children have not just seen a steady rise, but are taking a barbaric colour. In the period where consumerism is encouraged as opposed to real growth in terms of employment generation and a robust social security system, women are viewed as objects of consumption.

Their resistance to denial of self-choice and patriarchy is again met with increased violence.The contradictions are out in the open. While there is immense choice (for the few) to pick out the kind of homes they want, cars, LCD televisions, holiday spots, the same choice is not extended to young people in their own lives.. This is the outcome of the skewed growth system in the country.The widening economic disparities have somehow left the women’s question far behind. It was, therefore, shocking that a Bill to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace excluded domestic workers from its purview on a specious ground. Inevitably, this drew a lot of protest but the Bill has not been revised. Domestic workers and home-based workers, who are predominantly women, are now recognised as a big category of workers in the unorganised sector but there is no policy to safeguard their interests.The other reason that could be a contributory factor to rising crimes is that of the declining child sex ratio in the country.

There may not be any direct violence-skewed sex ratio connection but it is precisely in those societies where there are strong feudal and patriarchal values, that violence against women takes more acute forms. A recent survey by ASSOCHAM also showed that most women in Delhi were not aware of their legal rights.The situation for women has only worsened in the last two decades of liberalisation and the increase in crimes against them and the vulnerable show that there is something terribly wrong in the development model being followed where the accumulation of wealth is the mantra and monetary success and profit are touted as divine values.

“Flexible schedules are more productive and increase work intensity”

Due to flexi working hours, childcare facilities at offices and options of working from home, women professionals are moving up corporate ranks and managing home as well with aplomb,

Above findings have come to fore following conclusion of a survey conducted under aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF), on “Flexi HR policies make working attractive for women” in which 4,000 respondents was made up of 2,500 women (67 per cent) and 1,500 men (33 per cent). Forty-four percent of respondent were between 30 and 45 years old, 39 per cent were between 25 and 30. Most respondents were at the professional level (51 per cent). Thirty-seven per cent of respondents were in the PSU category and 3 per cent are at the director level and above.

Most respondents were married (60 per cent). Twenty-seven per cent were single, 9 per cent were divorced, separated or widowed. The cities involved in the survey included all metros and places like Delhi, Mumbai,Lucknow, Chandigarh, Pune, Bangalore, Ahemdabad, Udaipur, Shimla, Dehradun, Indore, Patna, Kochi and Chennai.

”There’s a similar shift been in preferences among men with minor children, just 18% of these women prefer ideal situation would be to work full time outside the home. Nearly 82% of all women say that flexible hour’s ideal situation for them, say Mr. D S Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM.”

Mothers with younger children (ages 0 to 4 years) also are less likely to prefer full-time work today. 82% of mothers with younger children prefer flexi hours, childcare facilities at the office, working from home, while 16% prefer working outside the home as a fulltime work. On the other side, 52% male prefer the flexible hours in the office, reveals the findings of the survey.

The survey also highlight that there are also differences in the way working moms and at-home moms assess the job they’re doing as parents. Mothers working full-time give themselves slightly lower ratings as parents, on average, than do at-home mothers or mothers employed part-time.

Working women face a lot of domestic hiccups and often have to make a tough decision where they have to work or stay at home. Flexible working hours, option to work from home, and a friendly leave policy’ help them juggle roles, says majority of the women.

Mr. Rawat also said that the Indian companies are also adopting work-from-home and flexible working hour policies to provide an ideal working atmosphere for women. More and more companies are fast adapting their policies to suit the requirement of women and help provide options like ‘work from home’, ‘flexi hours’ ‘maternity break, etc.

Today the working young women appear to be as ambitious as men when it comes to eagerness to climb the career ladder, and 46 percent women contribute even more to family income than their husbands, added the survey.

85% of the male said that they want to marry working women because they can balance both work and home very well.

A large majority of respondents (72 per cent) agreed that flexible working arrangements are simply a modern tool to allow persons to retain their productivity, while increasing their flexibility in choosing a work method more compatible to their work life fit.

Most respondents (56 per cent) said that flexible working arrangements should be available to all persons irrespective of their situation if it maintains or increases productivity and work life fit/balance.

A lesser majority (22 per cent) are of the view that flexible working arrangements are suitable only for staff with a strong sense of responsibility.

23% of the working women said that that their organisation provides benefits to pregnant women by allowing them to have a three-month flexi-hour working facility in addition to maternity leave. 71% of women said that HR policies are becoming more friendly in Indian companies.

Flexibility – the impacts on:

* reducing absenteeism

* retaining staff

* reducing stress and increasing well-being

* reducing the cost of commuting

* improving customer service and satisfaction.

THE GIST:

* Workers with flexible hours not only are more satisfied with their jobs; they also work more intensely.

* Researchers believe intensified work effort given to employers as exchange for more flexible schedule

The findings, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, add to the evidence base on the benefits of breastfeeding.

‘Our results provide even more evidence for the benefits of breastfeeding,’ says Maria Quigley of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, who led the work with Katriina Heikkilä. ‘Mothers who want to breastfeed should be given all the support they need. Many women struggle to breastfeed for as long as they might otherwise like, and many don’t receive the support that might make a difference.

There are a number of well-known health benefits of breastfeeding: for example, breastfed babies have lower rates of infections and mothers have a reduced risk of breast cancer. A range of other health and child development benefits have also been suggested – such as higher IQ, fewer behavioural problems and lower levels of obesity – but the evidence for these can be inconsistent across different studies.

The researchers from the University of Oxford, along with colleagues from the Institute of Social and Economic Research (University of Essex), University College London and the University of York, set out to investigate associations between the duration of any breastfeeding and child behaviour at age 5 years.

‘We found that children who were breastfed for at least four months were less likely to have behavioural problems at age 5,’ says Maria Quigley of Oxford University.

However, that observation might not have been the direct result of breastfeeding – it could have been down to a number of factors,’ she explains. ‘As a group, mothers who breastfed for four months were very different socially to those who formula fed. They were more likely to be older, better educated and in a higher socio-economic position, on average.

Having controlled for these and other differences between the groups, we found there was still a 30% lower risk of behaviour problems associated with prolonged breastfeeding.

The team used a nationwide survey of infants born in a 12-month period in 2000–2001 called the Millennium Cohort Study. This cohort study, for which the data are openly available, involved carrying out home interviews with parents when their children were 9 months old, with further follow-up interviews roughly every two years.

The Oxford researchers included data for over 9,500 mothers and babies born at full term to families of white ethnic background. They used answers from the initial interview when the children were 9 months old to determine whether mothers had breastfed and how long for.

They combined these data with the results of a standard questionnaire used for identifying children with possible behavioural problems. This was filled out by a parent (normally the mother) when their child was 5 years old. Children scoring in the top 10% are classified as having an abnormal score.

Abnormal scores in the questionnaire can result from a range of emotional (eg clinginess, anxiety), conduct (eg lying, stealing) or hyperactivity (restlessness) problems. ‘We’re not necessarily talking about tearaway, unmanageable 5-year-old kids,’ says Maria Quigley. ‘It might be unusual anxiousness, restlessness, inability to socialise with other children or play fully in groups.’

The raw figures showed that 16.1% of formula-fed babies (530 out of 3,292 formula-fed babies) had abnormal scores at age 5. Of the babies breastfed for at least four months, 6.5% had abnormal scores (179 out of 2,741 babies).

However, these two groups of mothers and children are very different across a number of measures, such as mother’s age, education and socio-economic position. It could be that breastfeeding is serving as a proxy for something else causing the difference in rates of behavioural problems among the children.

So the researchers then adjusted their analysis to account for all these potential factors. Children who were breastfed for at least four months were still about 30% less likely to have behavioural problems at age five.

It is possible to suggest possible causes for the relationship between breastfeeding and reduced likelihood of problem behaviour. It may be that there is something in the breast milk that leads to improved neurological development and behavioural learning in children. Or the close physical contact during breastfeeding may lead to more mother-baby interaction and better communication. Or the reduced illness experienced by babies who are breastfed.

‘We just don’t know whether it is because of the constituents in breast milk which are lacking in formula, or the close interaction with the mum during breastfeeding, or whether it is a knock-on effect of the reduced illness in breastfed babies. But it does begin to look like we can add fewer behavioural problems as another potential benefit of breastfeeding.

In the first phase, the scheme will cover 25% of the population i.e. 1.5 crore girls in the age group of 10-19 years in 152 districts of 20 states. It is expected that with making sanitary napkins available at the village level, the usage of sanitary napkins will increase. Easy access and convenient pricing are the strategies adopted by the Ministry for increasing usage of safe and hygienic practices during menstruation. The ASHA will get an incentive of Re. one on sale of each pack, besides a free pack of sanitary napkins per month.

Evidence suggests that lack of access to menstrual hygiene (which includes sanitary napkins, toilets in schools, availability of water, privacy and safe disposal) could contribute to local infections including Reproductive Tract Infections (RTI). Studies have shown that RTIs are closely interrelated with poor menstrual hygiene and pose grave threats to women’s lives, livelihood, and education. Services for the prevention and treatment of RTI/Sexually Transmitted Infections are integral part of the Reproductive Child Health II Programme (RCH II). With specific reference to ensuring better menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls, Government of India is launching this scheme as part of the Adolescent Reproductive Sexual Health (ARSH) in RCH II.

Women with painful periods show increased sensitivity to pain throughout their cycles, even when there is no background period pain.

The brain imaging study carried out at Oxford University shows that period pain is associated with differences in the way the brain processes pain, and that these differences persist throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle.

The findings are published in the journalPain.

The Oxford researchers in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain applied hot pads to the inner arm and abdomen of 12 women with painful periods (but who were otherwise healthy), and 12 women without, while they were in an MRI scanner.

Their brain’s responses to this painful stimulus were compared at three different points in the women’s menstrual cycles.

The team found that the group of women with painful periods were more sensitive to the hot pads – the pads didn’t have to be turned up as far to get the same reports of pain.

The brain imaging data revealed that women who experience period pain showed changes in activity in brain areas known to be involved in the pain response.

Importantly, differences in the way the brain processed the pain from the hot pads continued to be seen at times in their menstrual cycles when there was no period pain. This suggests there may be longer-lasting changes to the experience of pain and discomfort.

These changes in sensitivity and processing of pain are similar to what is seen in patients with chronic pain conditions.

Also in common with chronic pain conditions, the researchers saw significantly lower levels of cortisol, a hormone connected to the body’s stress response. These low levels persisted throughout the women’s menstrual cycles and were correlated with the length of time women had experienced period pain.

The women with painful periods also reported reduced quality of life suggesting the period pain may interfere with physical activity such as sport and work, although this is a small study for identifying such effects.

‘Many of the features of chronic pain conditions are present in women with painful periods, even though the pain is experienced for just a few days every month,’ says Dr Katy Vincent, a clinical lecturer in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Oxford University and first author on the paper.

Painful periods are common. Estimates vary, but can they can affect up to 90% of women at some time in their lives and are particularly common among adolescents and young women. According to Dr Vincent, the condition is sometimes taken less seriously because it is so common and it is often considered normal; teenagers in particular don’t always seek treatment.

The researchers argue that because painful periods can measurably affect women’s lives and alter the way they experience pain, the condition should always be given prompt and adequate treatment.

Women’s space in corporate governance has been the focus of many research studies and a crucial agenda for many activist groups. For instance, the European Women’s Professional Network, a non-profit organisation founded in 2002 with over 3,500 corporate members and entrepreneurs, commissions a bi-annual study on gender diversity known as Board Women Monitor.

Further, in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis the board’s accountability has become a subject of public scrutiny.

FOR MORE READING. . .

The child sex ratio has been falling since 1961. It is official now says the preliminary report. The improved overall sex ratio masks a rather worrying fall in the child sex ratio. The fall is greater and dramatic than the anticipation. Will the government at least now wake up to the call of protecting the girl child? The total population of the country is 121 crore, adding more than 18 crore over the last survey in 2001. At this speed of growth, the country’s population could only be stabilising at around 165 crore by 2060.
The Census is the sole data base in the country that the government uses to formulate its policies. The survey comes out with a database on demography, economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, social structure, language, religion and migration.
Disappearance of the girl child is a matter of grave concern today. The population survey reaffirms a fact, which is so disturbing that it has cast a blot on the country. Girls seem to have no place in the so-called country’s growth story.
The data shows that the sex ratio for children below six years has dropped from 927 in 2001 to a dismal 914 girls in 2011 for every 1,000 boys. The gender bias yet again draws attention to a lingering societal flaw that economic policies by the successive governme-nts are not being able to correct. The social bias and mindset have not changed even today.
Improved medical technology, education and improvement in quality of life in the last decade has resulted in the overall gender ratio improving from 933 women for 1,000 men to 940. The female population has risen by 18.1 per cent and has reached 586.5 million.
The lower numbers of young girls across towns and villages in India ‘is very worrying’ and was indicative of the continuing social problem. The director added that the census facts spoke for themselves and provided ample evidence that “nothing has been done of any real substance to save our unborn daughters.”
However, improvement in technology and spawning of mini-vans with sex determination machines chugging across villages has meant that baby girls are more at risk than ever before.The gender imbalance continues despite a ban on sex determination tests based on ultrasound scans and sex selective abortion. It has become a lucrative business for many.
There is wanton disregard for the laws which are against sex determination. The government policies aimed at arresting the declining child sex ratio needed a complete review. Whatever measures that have been put in place over the last 40 years have not had any impact on the ratio.
The only positive here is that Punjab and Haryana, which continue to have among the lowest child sex ratios at 846 and 830 respectively, have improved, up from 798 and 819 during Census 2001.
Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the only other states/UTs that have shown an increase in the child sex ratio.
Besides Punjab and Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (899, down from 916), Maharashtra (883, down from 913), Chandigarh (867, down from 845) and Jammu and Kashmir (859) have the most worrisome figures.
Though the southern states, Kerala (959), Andhra Pradesh (943), Karnataka (943), and Tamil Nadu (946), all have stronger sex ratios when compared to the national average of 914, they are worse off when compared to 2001.
This pattern continues although the government has prohibited hospitals from disclosing the gender of an unborn child.
Parents abort female fetuses and murder young female children for financial reasons. Incidents like this occur more frequently in the better educated and the richer Indian states, including Punjab and Gujarat.
Even the Capital city of the country is not free from the bias against the girl child. The date reveals that 821 females per 1000 males in 2001 has increased 866 men in 2011. Though the ratio of the population aged seven years and above has risen from 813 to 866 women in 2011.
Generally the sex ratio is heavily loaded against girls in these states. Take the proportion of children to the larger population, which is the measure of fertility, it has come down. Fertility has declined in all states, but even here, the number of girls has declined more than boys.
The literacy rate has gone up among the total population because the literacy rate of females has gone up because of more awareness. It is not because of government’s intervention only. The improvement in sex ratio is due to the increase in the longevity of women. In the sense that in the absence of a social security net and a proper environment, these people become dependent on others, it increases dependency.
If there is an improvement in the working population sex ratio, it is a good thing. If the improvement is limited to the aged population, it is not a good thing. As of now what we can say is, it reflects that women are living longer, their survival is better.
And their status is improving, sex ratio is going up, female literacy is going up and fertility is declining. National literacy rates have risen almost 10 per cent in the past decade to 74.04 per cent and there are now 50 per cent more literate Indian women than in 2001.
Slower growth of population, fertility decline, literacy increase and increase in the overall sex ratio are the positives. The negatives are the child sex ratio, distressing, and the density of population that has increased by almost 57 people per square km. This is also an area of concern because how much can our environment sustain? How much can our infrastructure sustain? When our next report on urban rural divisions come out, you will find out the extent of strain on urban infrastructure. The quality of life just declines.
Are we really a nation that so hates its female population that, despite being aware of what the absence of women can mean for any society, we continue to kill them even before they are born?
Many parents still prefer to have male children, since men are traditionally the breadwinners in society. Men also perpetuate the family name and having boys relieves families of the expense of providing dowries for girls and protecting their virtue.
Therefore despite laws against pre-natal tests for determining the sex of a child, the practice of aborting female foetuses is still widespread throughout the country, with many parents prepared to pay for illegal abortions carried out by private doctors.
The fact that female foetuses continue to be aborted in significant numbers can clearly be seen in the findings of the latest census. It shows that sex determination continues to be practised robustly and rampantly. As is sex discrimination — girls are given less food, less health care, less education and even less affection. Also, it seems policies for the girl child haven’t done much to improve the situation.
The truth is that a country that so devalues its women does not deserve to pride itself on its economic growth, if it’s a growth built on the mass murder of its girl children

The idea of International Women’s Day was born in the socialist movement in the first decade of the 20th century. Clara Zetkin, socialist leader and head of the Women’s Office of the Social Democratic party in Germany, proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – to be known as a Women’s Day – to recognise the social contribution of women and to press for their demands. As a socialist and an early (but not self-acknowledged) feminist, Zetkin saw this as part of a broader anti-capitalist movement that would also foster cooperation between women in unions, women’s organizations and socialist parties so they would unite and fight jointly in the class struggle for a more progressive society.

This suggestion was accepted unanimously at the second International conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, which included over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs, as well as the first three women elected to the parliament in Finland.

The first International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured in some European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland) in 1911 on 17 March. Rallies were held involving more than a million people (both women and men), raising demands for women’s right to work and be given equal wages, to vote, to hold public office and to end other forms of discrimination. The Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai described one of these rallies as composed of ”one seething, trembling sea of women… certainly the first show of militancy (in Europe) by working women” (www.leftwrite.wordpress.com). The demands raised at those first demonstrations still resonate today: an end to imperialist wars; better social and economic conditions for women and children; controls on rapidly rising food prices.

In the United States, on 8 March 1908, socialist women and women workers from the clothing and textile trades in the city held a mass meeting for an eight-hour day and women’s suffrage. But less than a week after the first IWD in Europe in 1911, on March 25 the tragic ”Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” in New York City in the United States led to the deaths of more than 140 working women, mostly recent migrants into the US. This led to greater attention to working conditions and labour legislation for women, in the United States and other developed countries, and these also became important rallying points for the demands made for women on IWD in later years.

The reason that the date was shifted to 8 March is of great relevance for the global women’s movement. In 1917 in Tsarist Russia, Russian women went on strike for “bread and peace”, partly in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. The strike began on the last Sunday of February (which was 8 March by the Gregorian calendar used throughout most of the world). The strike continued despite state repression and personal hardship endured by the women. This was the catalyst for – and effectively became the first stage of – the Russian Revolution. Four days later the Tsar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. Ever since, IWD has been celebrated on 8 March not only to press for demands for gender equality, but importantly as recognition of the tremendous power that women can wield when they unite.

The association of IWD with broader struggles of working people has remained a critical part of its essence. The slogan most often used on IWD was ”Class struggle is women’s struggle – women’s struggle is class struggle!” It was therefore very much part of the activities of trade unions and workers’ organizations, who recognised that women’s emancipation cannot occur within a social and economy system that denies the emancipation of workers in general, and vice versa.

But as IWD became more international (taken up by the United Nations in the second half of the 20th century) and even ”official” in scope, this critical link between the emancipation of women and broader economic and social emancipation of all has often been sidelined. This reflects a general tension that unfortunately still remains between feminism and other progressive Left movements – a tension that persists all the more because the Left is the natural and inevitable home of those aspiring to the liberation of women.

Women have been part of the working class since the beginning of capitalism, even when they have not been widely acknowledged as workers in their own right. Even when they are not paid workers, their often unacknowledged and unpaid contribution to social reproduction and to many economic activities is absolutely essential for the functioning of the system.

However, it did take a long time for women’s struggles to be accepted as integral part of working class struggles for a better society. For many decades, even after the first IWD was celebrated to highlight the demands of women, trade unions and other worker organisations tended to be male preserves, based on the ”male breadwinner’ model of the household in which the husband/father worked outside to earn money, while the wife/mother did not earn outside income and handled domestic work.

It has taken prolonged struggle and determined mobilisation to generate greater social recognition of the role of women as wage workers in different forms, as well as to bring out the crucial economic significance of unpaid household labour and community- based work that is dominantly performed by women. Even so, it must be admitted that a major problem for many women activists has been the fundamental inequality in the alliance between feminism and socialism. As noted by Donald Sassoon in his magisterial history of the European Left in the 20th century (”One hundred years of socialism”, The New Press, New York 1996, page 419) ”It was accepted by socialists only on their own terms, namely that the social struggle between capital and labour was to be recognised as fundamental; the emancipation of women as women depended on the victory of the working class.”

Partly this reflected a concern that ”bourgeois” feminism would distract from the critical question of class struggle, which is why even someone like Clara Zetkin could insist that socialist women should avoid co-operating with other feminist groups. But the social reality of the experience of socialist countries in the 20th century has also shown that the breaking of gender stereotypes and domestic division of labour are not necessarily achieved through the dictatorship of the proletariat, even when significant strides are made in gender equality in other ways.

For socialist feminists, this has meant a dual and more complex process of struggle: the need to address and confront the unjust economic order that is expressed in class societies, and the simultaneous need to address and confront the constantly regenerated patterns of gender inequality and subordination that are expressed not just in economic terms but also socially, culturally and politically. The complexity is usually made more intense because of the fact that the second type of struggle involves taking on not only opposing class forces, but also elements within parties, trade unions and other organisations of the Left.

The fact that this second kind of struggle is happening more and more in India and elsewhere may appear to be divisive of Left and progressive movements, but it is actually a sign of great vitality. True emancipation obviously requires a politics that has been shed of its explicit and implicit masculinity, to pave the way for socialism for women and men equally. For that reason alone, it is probably important for socialist men to remember and celebrate International Women’s Day.

Courtesy :  Macroscan.org

The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) has accused the central government and official agencies of complete failure to take the necessary steps to reverse the trends is reprehensible. It said the Central Supervisory Board, set up to monitor oversee the implementation of the PcPNDT Act, has not held a single meeting over the past three years.  It is only too obvious that corruption and the clout wielded by corrupt members of the medical profession who, unfortunately, are often supported by their associations have rendered the act toothless. The so-called monitoring committees at all levels are dominated by those very people whose activities are to be monitored and activists, experts etc are conspicuous by their absence on these committees. The uncompromising implementation of the act is absolutely essential if the Census 2021 is to show any improvement in the situation.

While social norms and practices need to be drastically altered and social reform movements must be undertaken to do this, the state has the responsibility to ensure the equal economic, and social rights of all women, girls and children along with a violence-free existence for them.  Cascading marriage expenses, skyrocketing dowry demands, unabated violence inside and outside marital and natal homes, along with a host of other factors, are responsible for the ever-growing daughter-abhorrence that we are witnessing.

A year after raising hopes of progressives in the country that heinous crimes such as honour killings would receive the strictest of punishments; those hopes seem to have been belied in a judgement recently in the infamous “Manoj-Babli case”.

On 29^th March 2010, the Karnal session Court sentenced seven who were found guilty in the case involving the murder of two youth in June 2007 – Manoj and Babli belonging to Karora village of Kaithal district, Haryana. Among them five were relatives of Babli and one was found to be the main conspirator, also a prominent Congress leader, Ganga Raj, leader of the notorious Banwala Khap, which was opposed to Manoj and Babli marriage for “belonging to the same gotra”.

The conviction and sentencing was the result of perhaps one of the most glorious and difficult struggles in the history of the women’s movement in India, led and supported by the All India Democratic Womens’ Association. Manoj’s sister, Seema (only 19 when her brother was killed) and his mother, Chanderpatri (a widow) were the first in Haryana to file a case against those involved in an “honour killing”. Amidst life threats, an assassination attempt on Seema and a complete economic and social boycott by the villagers (the latter was led by Ganga Raj himself in the village where he proudly proclaimed the decision to boycott the family in front of the electronic media) the two women stood their ground and continued to valiantly fight the case. Many hoped the Karnal’s sessions court’s verdict would set a precedent for other honour killings and would result in trials for even more guilty people responsible for these crimes. The verdict let the Khaps know that their terror tactics would not go unchallenged.

Yet the acquittal of Ganga Raj by the Chandigarh High Court which also commuted the death sentences of four other convicts seems to have poured water on all high hopes nurtured by progressives wishing to take on these powerful Khap institutions. The details of the verdict on 11^th March 2011 are yet to be carefully studied, but one can’t but react in immense despair and anger. Not only does this embolden the unconstitutional and undemocratic Khap Panchayats in Haryana, but also one wonders if another Seema and Chanderpati in another part of the country would dare to take on the might of Khaps (and/or other such extra constitutional bodies) with all their political backing after such a verdict. Seema’s and Chanderpati’s lives are again under threat. Ganga Raj has been acquitted- a man with big political ambitions and few scruples.

Where do we stand? There is Ganga Raj and the Khaps on the one side, all in a celebratory mood after his release and Seema and Chanderpati on the other. Chanderpati has vowed that the verdict will be challenged in the Supreme Court and true and comprehensive justice would be demanded again for the murdered victims.

Seema and Chanderpati and many other women who’ve been made victims to Haryana’s feudal, casteist and patriarchal traditions need to know that their resistance is supported by many, from within and outside the state. We need to react, our anger needs to be heard. Just a few days post the International Womens’ Day, one could only wish that the resistance is provided solidarity by oppressed women, progressives and democratic minded people all over the country.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not maintain district–wise data on trafficking of women and children. However, the latest available State–wise data on   the number of cases registered under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, from 2007-2010, is given as under:

This information was given by Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Women and Child Development in a written reply to a question in the Rajya

My UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign, along with its Network of Men Leaders, is working to end impunity and change mindsets. There is also growing international resolve to punish and prevent sexual aggression in conflict, and to do more to implement the Security Council’s landmark resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which highlights the importance of involving women in all aspects of building and keeping peace.

Another area where we urgently need to see significant progress is on women’s and children’s health. The September 2010 Summit on the Millennium Development Goals recognized the central importance of this issue, and Member States and the philanthropic community have pledged strong support for my global strategy to save lives and improve the health of women and children over the next four years. In the realm of decision-making, more women, in more countries, are taking their rightful seat in parliament. Yet fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of state or government. Even where women are prominent in politics, they are often severely under-represented in other areas of decision-making, including at the highest levels of business and industry. A recent UN initiative – the Women’s Empowerment Principles, now embraced by more than 130 major corporations – aims to redress this imbalance.

This year’s observance of International Women’s Day focuses on equal access to education, training and science and technology. Cell phones and the Internet, for example, can enable women to improve the health and well-being of their families, take advantage of income-earning opportunities, and protect themselves from exploitation and vulnerability. Access to such tools, backed up by education and training, can help women to break the cycle of poverty, combat injustice and exercise their rights. The launch this year of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – UN Women – demonstrates our intent to deepen our pursuit of this agenda. Only through women’s full and equal participation in all areas of public  and private life can we hope to achieve the sustainable,

The report, Women’s Representation in Local Government in Asia and the Pacific, quantifies and analyzes for the first time women’s representation at rural, urban, district and provincial levels across the region. It emphasizes that local governments offer one of the most important arenas for women’s political participation and can have a more direct impact on people’s lives and livelihoods than national parliaments. “Women’s representation in local councils is critical. Bold steps are needed to significantly increase the numbers,” said Nicholas Rosellini, UNDP Deputy Regional Director for Asia‐Pacific. “For most poor people in Asia‐Pacific, local governments are the most important political arena. They also have an important role in encouraging women’s political participation.”

More emphasis must be placed on having women elected into leadership positions, according to the report. Across the different levels of sub‐national government it is the countries with quotas such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, or other affirmative action policies such as Viet Nam which have the largest [rates of women’s representation. However this does not translate into women’s election to leadership positions such as council chairs or heads.

“Women’s active participation makes politics civilized and violence free,” says Rashadea Akhter, Vice Chair in Chouddygram Upazila Parishad (district council) in Comilla, Bangladesh. One of the main obstacles to women’s representation is the process of candidate selection in political parties. Women find it more difficult to be nominated as candidates in political parties where offices are traditionally held by men, says the report. In the Pacific, which has one of the lowest percentages of women in national politics of any region in the world, customary notions about women’s role in society may be the biggest impediment to their political participation. Representation of women in politics at the national level has made slight progress since commitments were made by most governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 to achieve an international target of 30 percent. Then global representation of women in parliament was only around 11 percent, while in 2009 that number had shifted to 18.4 percent. In Asia and the Pacific the picture is even worse, with Asia (18.2 percent) and the Pacific (15.2 percent) ranking as the second and third worst regions for women’s representation in parliament in the world.

At the rural council level, the percentage of women elected has a wide distribution. India leads at more than 35 percent, Pakistan just over 30 percent and Bangladesh at nearly 25 percent, while Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Tonga all have less than 10 percent of women elected at the rural council level. Sri Lanka has the second lowest representation recorded at just 1.6 percent. Despite the relatively high percentages of women representatives in rural councils in Bangladesh and Pakistan, both countries show some of the lowest percentages of women as heads of rural councils with only 0.17 percent and 0.36 percent respectively.

The highest levels of women’s representation in urban councils were China, 48.2 percent, Australia, 24.65 percent, Bangladesh, 28.4 percent and the Republic of Korea, 21.78 percent. However, with the exception of Australia (21.6 percent) and Philippines (20.5 percent) women are unlikely to be elected into leadership positions. Bangladesh has only 1.37 percent of women elected to these higher positions.

The report notes that there is a general lack of data on women at the lowest levels of sub‐national government up to the district level. Where countries have district councils and data is available there is overall a better rate of women’s representation than in rural and urban councils. Bangladesh, India and

Pakistan all have women’s representation of over 30 percent with quotas, while Viet Nam has affirmative action policies in place and a women’s representation rate of 23 percent. The exception is Mongolia, which despite a lack of quotas and a national women’s representation in Parliament rate of 3.9 percent has elected 28.4 percent of its intermediary or district representatives as women.

Provincial and regional assemblies are the highest tier of sub‐national government, and out of the countries in the Asia Pacific with this level of representation Afghanistan (30 percent), Australia (27.8 percent), India (37 percent), New Zealand (29.4 percent) and Viet Nam (23.88 percent) have the highest levels of women’s representation. Compared to the other levels of sub‐national government, provincial and regional assemblies have a larger number of women at senior positions within elected bodies. Afghanistan has 15 percent. However, apart from the Philippines (19.8 percent) and New Zealand (16 percent) women at leadership levels in elected sub‐national bodies still languishes below 10 percent with the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Indonesia having zero women as heads of chairs of provincial and regional assemblies. The report notes that sub‐national governments on average in Asia and the Pacific have a higher representation of women in elected and appointed decision‐making positions than at the national level. The Status Report is published jointly by UNDP, UN Women, United Cities

Annexure

1. Scheme of Building Grants, including Studio Theatres.

2. Financial Assistance for Development of Buddhist/Tibetan Culture and Art.

3. Financial Assistance for celebration of Centenaries/Anniversaries of important Personalities.

4. Scheme for Financial Assistance for setting up of Multipurpose Complex including those for Children.

5. Financial Assistance for Promotion and Strengthening of Regional and Local Museums.

6. Grant-in-aid to Voluntary Organizations/ Societies for Development and Maintenance of National Memorials.

7. Financial Assistance to persons distinguished in letters, arts and other walks of life who may be in indigent circumstances and their dependants.

8. Scheme of Financial Assistance to Professional Groups and Individuals engaged for specified Performing Arts Projects”. The scheme has two parts:

1. Salary Grants assistance for performing arts groups, to help them establish themselves in their field.

2. Production Grant to be given for approved projects and programmes in these areas.

9. Scheme for Scholarships to Young Artists in different Cultural Fields.

10. Scheme of financial assistance for seminars, festivals and exhibitions on cultural subjects by not-for-profit organizations (Cultural Functions Grant Scheme).

11. Tagore National Fellowship for Cultural Research.

12. Tagore Commemoration Grant Scheme (TCGS).

13. Financial Assistance for Preservation and Development of Cultural Heritage of Himalayas.

14. Scheme for Award of Fellowships to Outstanding Persons in the field of Culture.

Empowered women and girls have a truly transformative role to play in all our societies, with benefits for all. Around the world, healthy, educated, employed, and empowered women break poverty cycles – not only for themselves, but for their families, communities, and countries too. This year, International Women’s Day highlights the participation of women and girls in education, training, science and technology. It also focuses our attention on the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.

Advances are being made in many areas, but no yet fast enough. For example, less than 10 percent of countries have women heads of state or government, and only 19 percent of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

While more women than ever before are participating in the work force, almost two-thirds of women in the developing world work in the informal economy without labour rights and social protection. Globally, women are more likely to be jobless, and to have borne the worst setbacks of the economic crisis.

Although the gender gap in education is closing, there are wide differences within and across countries. More than 30 million girls around the world are missing out on education. Yet educated women and girls have more choices, are able to have higher living standards, are more likely to seek medical care during pregnancy, and ensure that their children are vaccinated and better nourished. Those children are then more likely to go to school and carry on the benefits of education to their communities and future generations. Investing in women and girls is crucial for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was a key message in UNDP’s International Assessment of what it will take to achieve the MDGs.

From huge national projects to smaller-scale initiatives, UNDP works to support countries to reduce gender inequalities and improve the lives of women. For example, in El Salvador, a country with one of the highest murder rates of women, UNDP and sister UN agencies worked with women parliamentarians to support the passage of a groundbreaking Bill to address violence against women. In Lebanon, more than 40 women’s co-operatives have formed across the country to revitalize communities which were economically devastated by conflict.

The United Nations’ commitment to investing in women and girls is absolute and resolute. With the creation of UN Women, the UN has an organization devoted to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women, working together with the UN country teams around the world, will play a vital role in promoting and achieving gender equality, and UNDP is committed to a strong partnership with UN Women to this end.

FOR MORE READING. . .

March 8 sees the highest level of global women’s activity ever witnessed as groups celebrate the International Women’s Day centenary.

The first International Women’s Day events were run in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland in 1911 and attended by over one million people. 100 years on, International Women’s Day (IWD) has become a global mainstream phenomena celebrated across many countries and is an official holiday in approximately 25 countries including Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zambia.

8 March sees extensive global women’s activity. Performer and social activist, Annie Lennox, will lead a mass march across London’s Millennium Bridge for charity. In Washington D.C. over a thousand people will descend on Capitol Hill demanding a better world for millions of marginalized women and girls around the globe. A major international businesswomen’s conference will be hosted in Sydney, Australia. Schools and governments around the world are participating in the day. Trade Unions and charities are campaigning. Global corporations are hosting conferences and distributing extensive resource packs. The United Nations Secretary-General delivers a formal message. The United States even designates the whole month of March as Women’s History Month as officially proclaimed by President Obama on February 28, 2011.

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future. However, activity has not always been on the increase. Australian entrepreneur and women’s campaigner Glenda Stone, who founded the http://www.internationalwomensday.com website, a global hub of events and information, said:

“A decade ago International Women’s Day was disappearing. Activity in Europe, where International Women’s Day actually began, was very low. Providing a global online platform helped sustain and accelerate momentum for this important day. Holding only a handful of events ten years ago, the United Kingdom has now become the global leader for International Women’s Day activity, followed sharply by Canada, United States and Australia. 2011 will see thousands of events globally for the first time.”

More recently, social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have also helped fuel International Women’s Day activity. Generally the day has moved away from its socialist Suffragette beginnings to become more mainstream in celebrating women’s achievements. Women’s rights campaigners, however, continue to remind that vigilance rather than complacency is essential in striving for women’s equality.

About International Women’s Day

• International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.
• In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women’s Day is a national holiday.
• The first IWD was observed on 19 March 1911 in Germany following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America. The idea of having an international women’s day was first put forward at the turn of the 20th century amid rapid world industrialization and economic expansion that led to protests over working conditions.
• 2011 sees the International Women’s Day centenary fall on the same say as Shrove (pancake) Tuesday.

Not a revolution. In 1962, 1977 and even in 1985, the women’s movement used radical rhetoric and legal action to drive out overt discrimination. But most of the barriers that persist today are insidious – a revolution couldn’t find them to blast them away. We need a more holistic strategy – one that unearths and addresses underlying systemic disadvantages within the fabric of the work itself. I call them as the ‘challenges that have no name’.

FOR MORE READING. . .

1974: The issue of women’s representation in Parliament first raised in a report submitted to the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare by a Committee on Status of Women in India. Highlighting the low number of women in political bodies, the report recommends that seats be reserved for women in panchayats and municipal bodies.

1993: The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments reserve one-third of seats for women in panchayats and municipal bodies.

September 12, 1996: Women’s Reservation Bill first introduced in parliament by H D Deve Gowda’s government as 81st Constitution Amendment Bill. Soon after, Gowda’s government becomes a minority and 11th Lok Sabha dissolved.

The Bill is referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by CPI MP Geeta Mukherjee which presents its report to the Lok Sabha on December 9, 1996.

June 26, 1998: The bill reintroduced by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the 12th Lok Sabha as the 84th Constitution Amendment Bill. This time too, the bill lapses as 12th Lok Sabha is dissolved prematurely with the Vajpayee government being reduced to a minority.

November 22, 1999: The bill is once again introduced by the NDA government in the 13th Lok Sabha. But the government again fails to gather consensus on the issue.

The NDA government brought the bill to the Lok Sabha twice in 2002 and 2003 but could never get it passed even though the Congress and the Left, constituting a majority, had assured NDA of their support.

May 2004: After coming to power, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government announces its intention to pass the bill as part of its commitments in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

May 6, 2008: The Bill is introduced in Rajya Sabha and referred to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice.

December 17, 2009: The Standing Committee presents its report and the bill is tabled in both Houses of Parliament amid protests by Samajwadi Party, JD (U) and RJD.

February 22, 2010: In her address to Parliament, President Pratibha Patil says the government is committed to early passage of the bill.

February 25, 2010: Union Cabinet approves Women’s Reservation Bill.

March 8, 2010: Bill moved in Rajya Sabha, but voting on it deferred after unruly scenes and threats of withdrawal support to the UPA government by SP and RJD.

March 9, 2010: Women’s Reservation Bill passed by Rajya Sabha with overwhelming majority

The major task to cater to the welfare of the women, their holistic empowerment especially of the marginalized sections primarily rests with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. On this backdrop it is worth mentioning here that under the UPA dispensation, the Ministry has taken the giant and vital steps towards launching two new schemes. They are-Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (SALA) to address the multidimensional issues of the adolescent girls in the age group of 11-18 years. According to the programmes drawn by the Ministry, initially the programme will be implemented in 200 districts across the country.

Another such significant initiative undertaken by the Ministry is the Indira GandhiMatritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) – Conditional Maternity scheme. Initially to be implemented in 52 districts, the scheme aims to improve the health and nutrition status of pregnant and lactating women. The scheme will also create opportunities for pregnant women to associate themselves with the Anganwadis and the health centres.

SABLA

The Rajiv Gandhi SABLA was approved by the Government on  August 16, 2010 and formally launched on  November 19. The Anganwadi centres will be the focal point for the delivery of the services and are meant to implemented through States and UT’s with 100 per cent financial assistance from the Government at the center. SABLA aims at empowering adolescent girls for 11-18 years by improvement in their nutritional and health status and upgrading home skills, life skills and vocational skills.

Help towards Motherhood

Similarly, in October 2010, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, approved the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) – Conditional Maternity schemes.

The scheme envisages providing cash directly to pregnant and lactating women during pregnancy stage as it attempts to partly compensate for wage loss to the carrying mothers. The essential objectives of the scheme are to improve the health and nutrition status of pregnant and lactating women and the infants. Further, pregnant women of 19 years of age and above for first two live births are entitled for benefits under the scheme. The beneficiaries will be paid Rs 4000 in three installments till the child attains the age of six months on fulfilling specific conditions related to maternal and child health. The scheme also makes its clear that the Anganwadi worker and Anganwadi helper would receive an incentive of Rs 200 and Rs 100 respectively per pregnant and lactating woman after all the due cash transfers to the beneficiary are complete. Official sources say an allocation of Rs 190 crore was made for the financial year 2010-11 and an estimated 13 lakh beneficiaries are expected to be covered under the scheme.

ICDS

Besides these schemes, the Ministry has been undertaking several long-term and time-tested projects to provide social and economic means of support including shelter, counseling, vocational training and financial assistance to the targeted women and children. Among all the major schemes, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is the flagship programme, which was launched in 1975 with the principal objectives to improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age group of 0-6 years.

The scheme among other things also aims to enhance the capability of the mother of a child to look after the normal health and nutritional needs of the child through proper nutrition and health education.

The concept of providing a package of services is based primarily on the consideration that the overall impact will be much larger if the different services develop in an integrated manner as the efficacy of a particular service depends upon the support it receives from related services.

It is in this context, ICDS ensures convergence between the Ministries of Women and Child Development and Health, Sanitation and drinking water, Rural Development and the Department of Elementary Education.

In 2009, the Government brought in a few changes in the funding pattern and decided to introduce the concept of cost sharing ratio between the centre and the state with effect from 1st April, 2009. It would be 90:10 basis for all the North Eastern States and 50: 50 basis for other states.

In the recent times there has been also a significant increase in the Central Government’s spending on the implementation of the scheme. As against the allocation of Rs 10391.75 crore for the 10th plan, the fund has been raised to Rs 444,000 crore in the 11th Plan.

For ICDS, the Government  has been also partnering with several international partners. These include World Bank, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and also the World Food Programme.

Over the years, it has been  appreciated by the Government that early childhood care and education at the pre-school stage is increasingly being acknowledged globally as a critical investment for enhancing school readiness. With an overall supportive and enabling policy environment in place, the Ministry is now embarking on the next step of developing a time bound plan of action in partnership with public, private and voluntary sectors at both the national and the state levels to translate the policy directives into field realities.

In short, the Ministry is in constant move. And by the new initiatives and upgrading the already existing ones, it is only trying to break the new frontiers in the realm of comprehensive development of the targeted women and the children. (PIB Features)

The house was also informed that the Government has received complaints from rural people regarding wages paid under the scheme. Maximum complaints have been received from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Mahatma Gandhi NREGA provides for a legal guarantee for up to 100 days of wage employment to every rural household in every financial year for doing unskilled manual work on demand. The Act further provides that work has to be provided to an applicant within 15 days of the demand failing which unemployment allowance becomes payable. Therefore, funds available with the States have to be kept upfront in order to meet any sudden spurt in the labour demand in an area. Funds under the Act are released to the States after they have utilized atleast 60% of the available resources. Performance of the States is regularly reviewed by the Ministry in the Performance Review Committee (PRC) meetings which are held on quarterly basis and also in the Empowered Committee meetings while finalizing the Labour Budgets of each State.

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DEFINING THE SCOPE OF REGULATION

Voices for women borrowers in the debate on regulation, have been arguing that all entities indulging in micro-lending should be brought under the ambit of regulation. In the main, there are three broad categories of institutions that do micro-lending to women: first is the banks (both public, cooperative, rural and private sector), the second the microfinance institutions, and the third several institutions, trusts, societies, and cooperatives which are meant to be not for profit and do some amount of micro-lending. Of these, the committee identifies the second category as needing the maximum amount of regulation and in order to cover such institutions it creates a new category called NBFC-MFI (that is a special category for a non-banking financial company operating in this sector). The report explains that the creation of this category has become essential because MFIs deal with vulnerable groups and their fate is intimately linked to the Bank-Linkage Programme.

Because of this, the committee defines the MFI as “a company (other than one licensed under Section 25 of Companies Act) which provides financial services predominantly to low income borrowers with loans of small amounts, for short terms on unsecured basis, mainly for income generating activities with repayment schedules which are more frequent than those normally stipulated by commercial banks..”. Under such a definition an MFI should be providing loans to people who do not have an annual income higher than Rs 50,000 and whose individual loans do not exceed an upper limit of Rs 25,000 per person. Apart from this, the 90 per cent of the assets of the organisation should be in terms of their loan portfolio (termed as ‘qualifying assets” by the committee).

What is most noticeable about this definition is the fact that it leaves out many institutions (trusts, societies, federations and Section 25 companies) who do microfinance on the side even though their main vocation may be to provide health or educational services. Some of these organisations have also been involved in microfinance on a not-for profit basis and have had a significant role in the SHG- Bank Linkage Programme. However, even in this situation there are instances where not for profit organisations used their leverage with the bank linkage programme and accumulated wealth to turn themselves into MFIs. Experience on the ground, especially amongst the urban poor shows that such organisations need regulation, for if no rules are set for them, their practices can be fairly exploitative. Hence it is important to regulate even not for profit institutions. In order to be successful in this objective, monitoring has to start from below. Hence it may be suggested that a mandatory committee of RBI, NABARD, lead banks and concerned lending organisations be formed under the district level bankers committee.  In their current form, the recommendations of the committee will only encourage organisations to register small micro lending businesses as NGOs which will not need any regulation.

INTEREST RATES AND CREATION OF COMPETITION

One of the main features of the report and its recommendations is that it starts with the assumption that the interest of banks and MFIs is complementary to each other. It notes that about 75 per cent of the funding of the MFIs comes from SIDBI and the banking sector. As of now, the total outstanding amount owed by these MFIs to SIDBI was Rs 13,800 crores and to the banks was Rs 4,200 crore. This interdependence of the MFIs and the banking sector has to be recognised while determining the roadmap for this sector. Hence one of its main recommendations is that “bank lending to the microfinance sector both through the SHG-Bank Linkage programme and directly should be significantly increased” and bank lending to the MFIs should remain in the “priority sector”. In this understanding, the competition between the banks to lend to the MFIs would lead to the decreasing cost of the loans and therefore result in a “decreasing rate of interest”. The logic of this argument has to be seen in the context of the fact that providing bulk loans to MFIs reduces the risk and the operational costs of the bank as compared to reaching out to women borrowers and SHGs directly. Hence, the maintenance of the “priority sector status to MFIs” will further the direct link between SHGs and banks and have an adverse impact on the bank-linkage model which has the potential to provide loans to women’s groups at lower interest rates. People are forced to go to MFIs  because bank’s are not providing adequate credit to the poor. Even SIDBI, which had earlier partnered many not for profit NGOs, is today routing the bulk of its credit through MFIs.

The committee recommendations on interest rates need to be seen in this context, where the focus of the report is not to ensure low interest rates, but to determine fair method of determining the interest rate. However an analysis of the proposals shows that it is going to rely on market mechanisms to decrease the interest rates for borrowers. The committee goes into details about how the rate of interest may be determined on the basis of the actual cost of loans. It recommends MFIs with an outstanding loan of Rs 100 Cr should operate at a margin cap of 10 per cent , where as the MFIs with outstanding loans of Rs 15 Cr to Rs 100 Cr should operate at a margin cap of 12 per cent. These margins (or we can say the percentage of interest charged over actual cost of loan) will be determined on the basis of the determination of their “actual cost of loans” which is based on the annual returns of the MFIs.  The committee hopes that this measure will ensure competition between banks which will lead to a decline in interest rates. Further the proposal for the creation of a “Domestic Social Capital Fund” with “social investors” from which the MFIs can source funding will also create competition to ensure that the banks are forced to keep interest rates down when they lend to the MFIs. In the end this will only give the MFIs an incentive to increase both, their bargaining power with banks as well as their operations. More and more MFIs will become the intermediaries between banks and women’s SHGs, thus increasing rather than decreasing the dependence of women on the MFIs.

SHORT CHANGING INDIVIDUAL BORROWERS

The emphasis on the determination of interest rates on the basis of “margin caps” is followed by a recommendation that micro-lending should only be done only in groups ie, through SHGs or joint liability groups. Social pressure and liability is seen as a vital mechanism by which a person will be forced to repay loans in a scheduled time, as well as seek loans. This means that the power equations within a social group will play a major role in determining who can get a loan, and this may work to the detriment of the most needy and vulnerable sections that needs a loan. Since no interest caps have been recommended for group loans, the committee has given a license to MFIs to fudge their accounts and charge high rates of interest to SHGs and JLGs. Thus, the replacement of “collateral” with social liability has potential to be disadvantageous to the economically and socially vulnerable people in the group.

In addition to this, the report puts a cap of 24 per cent on individual loans, which itself is a very high rate of interest for poor women borrowers. It is thus ironical that the poor alone are being expected to pay 24 per cent interest apart from insurance premium and processing charges under these recommendations. Women’s groups have been demanding loans to SHGs at 4 per cent with inter subvention from the government. This is not an urealistic proposal as it has been implemented by the states like West Bengal, Kerala, Tripura and Andhra Pradesh for providing subsidised credits to SHGs in their own regions.

The report states at the very beginning that microfinance is a tool for poverty alleviation and that 75 per cent of the total loan portfolio of an MFI has to be for income generating purposes. However the loan ceiling of Rs 25,000 for every individual borrower is insufficient to meet the needs of any income generation effort. Further consumptive loans at times of social and economic distress will become more and more difficult, especially for individual poor women borrowers. In this context, women’s groups need to reiterate their demand for special income generation and credit facilities for SHGs formed by the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the society.

NEED TO REGULATE THE SECTOR

While the committee recommends that the RBI should be the regulator for the sector, it also emphasises on the need for self regulation of the MFIs. Ironically this is the same argument that the microfinance network has been making in the wake of the Andhra Pradesh crisis. Some of these MFIs give gold coins to the staff who are in charge of recovery who in turn coerce the borrowers. The committee goes a step further and says that state governments do not need to make laws to cover such institutions, a mere amendment to the RBI act is enough to ensure regulation. It also states that money lenders acts should not be applicable to MFIs and also states that the Andhra Pradesh Act should be repealed.  Hence the committee has virtually said that that no new legislation is needed to regulate this sector. Thus, if the recommendations of this report are accepted there seems to be a remote possibility of the enactment of a socially just overarching law. In order to widen the base for this struggle there is need for a dialogue with the representatives from SHGs and the organisations fighting for their rights. Only then can we launch an effective broad based initiative to challenge the neo-liberal model whose interests the Malegam Committee report seeks to further.

During the two day conference, the Working Groups deliberated on Social, Economic and Political Empowerment of SC Women and Children and their protection from atrocities. The Conference focused upon social empowerment of SC women and children by improving their access to health & nutrition, education, housing & living conditions; and economic empowerment by enhancing opportunities for development & livelihoods in agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. Issues relating to manual scavenging and security & protection from atrocities were the other areas of focus.

The Conference came out with suggestions and recommendations on measures required to reach benefits in full to SC women and children to fulfil the needs, entitlements and rights of survival, protection and empowerment of this marginalised group to have equality with other castes. Adopting a rights-based approach rather than a welfare-oriented one in education, health, housing and living conditions was emphasized. Establishing a common school system with the concept of neighbourhood schools, setting up residential schools for SC children, elimination of discriminatory practices in delivery of health services were some of the other recommendations of the Conference.

To ensure economic empowerment of SC women, the Conference emphasized upon the need for enabling ownership of land and landed assets by SC women, organizing them into Self Help Groups (SHGs) and upgrading their skills. Increasing the number of days of assured employment under MGNREGA was also suggested. In the non-agricultural sector, the need for capacity-building of SC women to enable them to move from low and medium skilled jobs to high-skilled employment was highlighted.

On the issue of manual scavenging, the recommendations focused on the need for complete abolition of this practice, proper assessment of the numbers of those who are engaged in this occupation and intensive efforts towards their rehabilitation.

To ensure protection of SC women and children from atrocities, the Conference strongly recommended the establishment of an effective accountability mechanism, setting up of a focal officer in the Government to deal with SC women’s issues and creating awareness about grievance redressal mechanisms available. Ensuring effective implementation of Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP) was also emphasized upon.

There was wide participation from various stakeholders including Central Government Ministries, State Governments, experts and representatives of civil society organizations. Member Planning Commission, Dr. Narendra Jadhav, CMD National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation, Shri Ananta Charan Padhi, Dr. Vimal Thorat from All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, and Secretary/ Additional Secretary of Ministries of Rural Development, Agriculture, Social Justice & Empowerment, Panchayati Raj, and Department of School Education (Ministry of HRD) were among those who presented their views during the Conference.

The Conference on ‘Issues & Challenges for Development of Scheduled Caste Women & Children’ was organized by the Ministry of Women & Child Development on 18th – 19th January, 2011 at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The Conference reemphasised that the goal of holistic empowerment of Scheduled Caste Women and children would entail a radical transformation in the mindsets and societal perceptions within the family, the community and the nation as a whole. An integrated approach which focuses on the holistic empowerment and development of SC women and children is necessary to ensure that the constitutional vision of equality is fully realized. From the available data, it emerged that while in some sectors such as health and education, there had been an improvement and the gap between SC population and others had narrowed, disparities remained. A major limitation highlighted, in this context, was the absence of data, disaggregated by gender and social categories.

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Research on violence against women – especially male partner violence – has increased. Since 2005, when the first results of the World Health Organization (WHO) Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence³ were launched, the number of intimate partner violence prevalence studies increased fourfold, from 80 to more than 300, in 2008. We now have population-based prevalence data on intimate partner violence from more than 90 countries, although there are still some regions – such as the Middle East and west Africa – where there is relatively limited data. Similarly, there is also a growing body of evidence about the range of negative health and development consequences of this violence.

Women suffer violent deaths either directly – through homicide – or indirectly, through suicide, maternal causes and AIDS. Violence is also an important cause of morbidity from multiple mental, physical, sexual and reproductive health outcomes, and it is also linked with known risk factors for poor health, such as alcohol and drug use, smoking and unsafe sex.^4,5 Violence during pregnancy has also been associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and low birth weight.^6,7

When the cumulative impacts on mortality and morbidity are assessed, the health burden is often higher than for other, more commonly accepted, public health priorities. In Mexico City, for example, rape and intimate partner violence against women was estimated to be the third most important cause of morbidity and mortality, accounting for 5.6% of all disability-adjusted life years lost.⁸ In Victoria, Australia, partner violence accounted for 7.9% of the overall disease burden among women of reproductive age and was a larger risk to health than factors such as raised blood pressure, tobacco use and increased body weight.⁹

In addition to the human costs, research also shows that violence has huge economic costs, including the direct costs to health, legal, police and other services. In 2002, Health Canada estimated that the direct medical costs of all forms of violence against women was 1.1 billion Canadian dollars.¹⁰ In low-resource settings, relatively few women may seek help from formal services, but because of the high prevalence of violence, the overall costs are substantial. In Uganda, for example, the cost of domestic violence was estimated at 2.5 million United States dollars in 2007.¹¹

The broader social costs are profound but difficult to quantify.¹² Violence against women is likely to constrain poverty reduction efforts by reducing women’s participation in productive employment. Violence also undermines efforts to improve women’s access to education, with violence and the fear of violence contributing to lower school enrolment for girls. Domestic violence has also been shown to affect the welfare and education of children in the family.

This growing understanding of the impact of violence needs to be translated into investment in primary, secondary and tertiary level prevention: including both services that respond to the needs of women living with or who have experienced violence and interventions to prevent violence. WHO has recently publishedPreventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: taking action and generating evidence.¹³ This publication summarizes the existing evidence on strategies for primary prevention, identifying those that have been shown to be effective and those that seem promising or theoretically feasible. The review highlights the urgent need for more evidence on effective prevention interventions and for integrating sound evaluation into new initiatives, both to monitor and improve their impact and to expand the global evidence base in this area. It recognizes how infant and early childhood experiences influence the likelihood of people later becoming perpetrators or victims of intimate partner and sexual violence, as well as the need for early childhood interventions, especially for children growing up in families where there is abuse. It also recognizes the importance of strategies to empower women, financially and personally, and of challenging social norms that perpetuate this violence. Laws and policies that promote and protect the human rights of women are also necessary, if not sufficient, to address violence against women. In addition, health and other services need to be available and responsive to the needs of women suffering abuse. Concerted action is needed in all of these areas, but there is limited research on the most effective approaches.

Section 498-A was incorporated under the IPC after a sustained and long struggle by women’s organisations and others. However, dowry related torture and domestic violence has continued to escalate even after Section 498-A and Section 304(B) (dowry death) were incorporated in the law. Currently, according to official NCRB statistics, about 80,000 cases of torture under Section 498-A are filed every year all over the country. Every few minutes a woman is killed for dowry. However, very few complaints result in convictions. This is mainly because of the poor implementation of the law by the police and other authorities as well as certain loopholes in the dowry related act. Any dilution of Section 498-A will further weaken the efficacy of the law to deal with the issue.

WHAT THE SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS MEAN

Making Section 498-A non-cognisable would mean that the police will not respond to any complaint made under this section by a woman in distress, and will not embark on any investigation if that woman has suffered physical and mental violence as defined in Section 498-A or/and has suffered harassment and torture for dowry. Thus making Section 498-A non-cognisable will in effect mean that no cases would be registered under this section, and women would have to go to court to file their complaint before a magistrate. Very few women in our country will have the means or ability to do so.

Making the said section bailable would mean that no person can at all, at any stage, be arrested by the police without an order from a magistrate. It is relevant to point out that only non-serious offences, usually punishable with up to two years of imprisonment, are bailable under the Indian Penal Code. Making Section 498-A bailable would be suggesting that within-home violence on women is not serious, and no action should be taken by the police to even separate the violent husband from the woman who is getting battered. If we are governed by a rule of law, this cannot be done; battered and tortured women must be protected by law.

If Section 498-A is made compoundable it will only result in the women facing yet more pressure to compromise. In any event, if a compromise is reached in such cases, these are recognised by courts, including the High Courts, who readily quash the criminal proceedings.

The proposal made by the petitioner seeks to amend or dilute the law as it is alleged that false complaints, based on no evidence, are being filed. The petition also alleges that “the section is being fearlessly abused and misused by a large section of unscrupulous people with ulterior motives.” It is important to point out that no statistics of any kind are given in this petition which also states that adulterous women and women who want to get out of a marriage and extort money, etc, are filing petitions under Section 498-A. The petition is therefore extremely vague and based on false assumptions, and should not have been entertained at all.

The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in 2009 have included an amendment on the power of the police to arrest somebody. It states that the police should carry out a proper investigation in cases punishable by imprisonment of up to 7 years before arresting a person. It also states that ordinarily no arrest will be made if the accused cooperates with the police and does not tamper with the evidence, etc.

OBSTACLES WOMEN GENERALLY FACE

There will be number of complaints of dowry harassment, dowry death and domestic violence on a daily basis. Generally women victims of violence do not file complaints under this section unless they have suffered prolonged harassment and torture in their marital homes. It is only when they are not able to tolerate the daily, repeated violence that complaints are filed. Even then, it is found that the women who make complaints under Section 498-A have to face the brunt of gender bias, corruption and inefficiency in the criminal justice system. They have faced several obstacles in using the law as detailed under:

1) The police take an extremely long time to even register a complaint, if they do so at all. They have to make repeated trips to the police station to convince them to register the FIR.

2) In Delhi and other metropolitan cities like Mumbai, special methods have been devised to deal with these cases. In Delhi, Crime against Women Cells have been instituted by the police to deal only with dowry harassment cases and cases under Section 406 IPC. Instead of registering an FIR under Section 498-A and/or Section 406 IPC (criminal breach of trust for return of streedhan) and the Dowry Prohibition Act, these cases are first referred to the Crime Against Women Cells. Here women are forced to attend conciliation proceedings while their complaints are put on hold. In the meanwhile, no recovery of even their streedhan and dowry is made and valuable evidence is often lost as the in-laws have time to get rid of or hide the streedhan etc, especially jewellery and other valuables. The case is registered only when the conciliation fails and there is no compromise. This often takes a long time.

3) Even when their complaints are registered, proper investigation is not carried out by the police. The statements of the complainants and other members of the family/relatives and other witnesses are either not recorded or recorded in an extremely shoddy manner. Other evidence, which may be vital to the case, are not gathered.

4) Victims and their families often complain that the police and sometimes the courts seem to be biased against them and treat their cases as ordinary domestic squabbles.

5) Victims also complain that often the police do not act without bribe or other influence; Often their husbands are able to either bribe or influence the police.

6) It is relevant to mention that a number of women who file complaints are forced to compromise by being told that they will not get justice from the courts either in terms of punishment or other rights like maintenance.

PETITION: AN INSULT TO WOMEN

The propounders of these proposals are mostly interested parties and those being dealt with under this law, who feel that dowry harassment is not a crime. If these recommendations are implemented the entire law will get diluted and misused. The police do not need any directions to be cautious about these complaints as they already take a long time to even register an FIR and start an investigation.

Complaints under Section 498-A should be dealt with as complaints under other serious crimes are dealt with. A perusal of the judgements under this section shows that there are hardly any cases in which the accused have been held guilty under Section 498-A on its own. It is only in cases in which death has occurred that the accused, most often, get punished for cruelty and harassment under Section 498-A. This shows that rather than being misused, Section 498-A is being under-used.

If there are any false complaints under Section 498-A, these should also be dealt with according to law on a case-by-case basis. It is relevant to mention that several laws in our country are being misused by certain sections in our society. However, no one talks of amending these laws.

AIDWA felt that this petition should not have been proceeded with, and is filing it’s objections to it. The  petition is couched in extremely insulting and derogatory language towards women in general, and displays total insensitivity to the degree of suffering of the affected women. It would have been more relevant to consider a strengthening of the dowry laws to ensure that women can live a life free from violence.

Source: This is All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA)’s response to the petition

Releasing The Findings Of The Survey, ASSOCHAM Secretary General Mr. D.S. Rawat Said, “Significance Of Women As An Important Human Resource Was Recognized By The Constitution Of India Which Not Only Accorded Equality Of Women But Also Empowered The State To Adopt Measures Of Positive Discrimination In Their Favour.

Referring To Few Articles (14, 15(1), 15(3) And 16) Which Clearly Mention That Men And Women To Have Equal Rights And Opportunities In Political, Economic And Social Spheres, Prohibits Discrimination Against Any Citizen On Grounds Of Religion, Race Caste, Sex Etc., Special Provision Enabling The State To Make Affirmative Discriminations In Favor Of Women And Equality Of Opportunities In Matter Of Public Appointments For All Citizens, It Was Found That Awareness Was Msising

The Survey In Delhi Covered Delhi-NCR Based 10,000 Women, Working, Housewives And College Going Girls.

The Notable Women-Specific And Women-Related Legislations To Protect Women Against Social Disclamation, Violence And Authorities And Also To Provide For Equal Wages To Men And Women For Equal Work Includes Equal Remuneration Act Of 1976, Hindu Marriage Act Of 1955, The Marriage (Amendment) Act 2001 The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 And 1986 Are More Being Followed Up By The Ngos Floated In This Regard.

However, The Amendment Brought In 1984 To The Dowry Prohibition Act Of 1961 Made Women’s’ Subjection To Cruelty A Cognizable Offence Is Somewhat Known Even Amongst Uneducated Women. The Second Amendment Brought In 1986 Makes The Husband Or In-Laws Punishable, If A Woman Commits Suicide Within 7 Years Of Her Marriage And If It Has Been Proved That She Has Been Subjected To Cruelty. Also A New Criminal Offence Of ‘Dowry Death’ Has Been Incorporated In The Indian Penal Code.

Mr. Rawat Said Other Acts Are Child Marriage Restraint Act Of 1976, Medical Termination Pregnancy Act Of 1971, Indecent Representation Of Women (Prohibition) Act Of 1986 & The Commission Of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, The Protection Of Women From Domestic Violence Act, 2005, Legislations And Laws For Women To Protect Women Against Social Discrimination, Violence And Atrocities And Also To Prevent Social Evils Like Child Marriages, Dowry, Rape, Practice Of Sati Etc.

The Recently Notified Prevention Of Domestic Violence Act Is A Landmark Law In Acting As A Deterrent As Well As Providing Legal Recourse To Women Who Are Victims Of Any Form Of Domestic Violence. Apart From These, There Are A Number Of Laws Which May Not Be Gender Specific But Still Have Ramifications On Women.

In The Additions There Are Scheme Of The Ministry Of Women And Child Development Such As Schemes For Economic Empowerment Swa-Shakti, Swayamsiddha, Swawlamban Programme, Support To Training And Employment Program (STEP) Etc.

The Crimes Against Women Cell Was Set Up In 1983 At A Central Level In Delhi Police. It Was The First Police Response Meant Specifically For Women In And Most Likely Anywhere In The World. For Hitherto, Crimes Or Other Forms Of Harassment Faced By Women Were Handled By Normal Police Stations Along With Other Crime And Law And Order Issues.

Rape Crisis Cell Is Another Program Started By The Delhi Commission For Women In September 2005 To Provide Assistance To Rape Victims And This Is A Free Legal Service Cell Exclusively For Rape Victims.

Mr. Rawat Further Added That ASSOCHAM Study, Inter Alia Cover Percentage Of Women Migrants And Reasons Thereof, Composition Of Marital Status Of Women (Divorces, Married And Widow) And Awareness About Legal Age Of Marriage, Mother And Daughter Schooling Level, Women Age At The Time Of First Born Child, Women Literacy Level, Women And Elections Knowledge Of Minimum Wages, Sexual Exploitation, Support From Family And Knowledge About Women Cell And Health.

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/70-women-ignorant-of-their-legal-rights/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/70-women-migrate-in-delhi-from-up-bihar/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/70-women-migrate-in-delhi-from-up-bihar/#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:24:52 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=16125 70 per cent of migrant women in Delhi hail from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in search of job opportunities and better education for their wards, according to a survey undertaken by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

The survey revealed that around 38 per cent of women migrant are from UP, 32 per cent from Bihar, 12 per cent from Rajasthan and around 6 per cent from the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Releasing the findings of the study ASSOCHAM Secretary General, Mr. D.S. Rawat said, it was observed that out of 38% of women migrants from UP who came in search of jobs, 21% are in organized sector, 65% in unorganized sector and remaining 14% are still unemployed.

Similarly, in the case of Bihar, out of 32% women migrants 28% were for organized sector, 64% for unorganized sector and remaining 8% were jobless.

Whereas, out of 12% migrant women from Rajasthan, 33% were in organized sector, 56% in unorganized sector and 11% were unemployed.

Out of total percentage of women migrants, a large part of workforce is employed in unorganized sector. The percentage of women migrants in search of work, the highest number of unemployed i.e. 20% are in state of Madhya Pradesh.

ASSOCHAM said that majority of women are increasingly becoming financially independent and the society is welcoming the change in a positive manner. The organized sector comprises of housekeeping, security guards, government peons etc. The unorganized sector primarily includes domestic help, construction labor, tailors, beauty parlor assistants, vegetable sellers, scrap dealers, laundry assistants etc.

It was observed that 46% migrant women come in search of work for either self or for husband’s job. Only 7% of women think better education as a factor enough to migrate. Rest of the 24% women marked as ‘others’ (in diagram 2) have migrated either because of their marriage, job opportunities, for education of their jobs etc

The Government introduced ‘The Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010’ in Lok Sabha on 07.12.2010 with the object to provide protection to women against sexual harassment at all workplaces both in the public and private sector, whether organised or unorganised and for the prevention and redressal of complaints of sexual harassment. Women who are employed as well as those who enter the workplace as clients, customers or apprentices besides the students and research scholars in colleges and universities and patients in hospitals are sought to be covered under the proposed legislation. However, domestic workers working at home are not covered.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) suggested a draft Bill after holding consultations with various stake holders. In the draft Bill, provisions for constitution of Internal Complaints Committees, Local Complaints Committees dispute resolution prior to inquiry, maintenance of confidentiality etc. have been proposed. The important recommendations of the NCW have been incorporated in the Bill.

The NCW recommended covering domestic workers under the proposed legislation. However, the Government has decided to exclude domestic workers from the definition of employee as it may be difficult to enforce the provisions of the Bill within the privacy of homes and it may be more practical for them to take recourse to the provisions under criminal law.

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/bill-on-protection-of-women-against-sexual-harassment-at-work-place/feed/ 5 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/education-for-girl-child-a-springboard-to-national-progress-nirendra-dev/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/education-for-girl-child-a-springboard-to-national-progress-nirendra-dev/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:31:41 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=16010 The global community and the world bodies like the United Nations time and again underline the need to focus on urgent national and international steps to be taken for ensuring education for the girl child. Hundreds of millions of young children, mostly girls, throughout the world are often deprived of education along with other essential needs like adequate food, clothing and health care. Going by these yardsticks, the development of a Nation is truly measured by many indicators and among them literacy levels especially of women and girl children are vital.

The literacy drive among the girl child would work as a catalyst for social uplift and thereby ensure National progress. Keeping this as the desired endeavour , eradication of illiteracy and bringing the girl child into the realm of education has been a major National concern for last so many decades.

Here, it would be only relevant to point to a publication by the Directorate of Adult Education, a few years back wherein a compendium ‘Literacy in India’ carried a cover page showing a young village girl holding the slate inscribed on it the words, “ab mein likh sakti hoon (Now I can write)”. The picture-story only rightly emphasizes on the importance of education for girl child and how gender inequity in literacy drive continues to remain a serious challenge.

In 1988, the Government of India undertook the National Literacy Mission. With a new sense of urgency, it gave upon itself and the Nation the seriousness and emphasis. In adult education with a fixed goal, clear time frame and well-defined target group. Today over 98 per cent of the districts in India have been covered under literacy campaigns and life long learning opportunities were being made available in more than 200 districts.

The National Literacy Mission had endeavoured to ensure functional literacy for all adult non-literates in the country. By the turn of 2001 there was an indication that overall literacy rate had shot up substantially.

The census of 2001 brought out certain facts those ought to be analyzed in totality and objectively. Although female literacy in India now stands at 54 per cent and is much higher than female literacy in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bangladesh, it trails male literacy in India (76 per cent) by over 20 percentage points. It is in this context that there is great expectations from the Right to Education Act passed by the Government last year. Thanks to the new Act, all children aged 6-14 now have the constitutional right to receive a good quality education. The Plan rightly also includes proposals to upgrade existing schools and open new ones; train thousands of new teachers for a mandated 1:30 teacher-pupil ratio, and institute a 25 per cent reservation in private schools for minority students. But having said so there are several hurdles. Just to point out the oft-repeated statement, one needs to say that a mere legislation cannot ensure achieving the desired result.

Urbanisation in recent times has flooded a large number of cities, district towns and the metropolis with huge army of migrant workers. The education of the children of this workforce, especially the lower middle class and the poorer sections, often get neglected for practical reasons. The drop out rate is high among the female children throwing in added challenges. In general sense also, the studies have shown that among the poorer section, the poverty levels create a situation by which economic concerns remain at the centre of every activity for such families resulting in undermining the process of learning for the girl child.

But amid new challenges, one should not miss the sight of certain commendable achievements. Among the performing states, Kerala showed a female literacy rate of 88 per cent as against male (94 per cent), Mizoram 86 per cent as against the male literacy rate of 91 per cent and Lakshadweep 82 per cent (female literacy) and 93 per cent of male literacy.

Moreover, the campaigns like Education for street children has yielded positive results in cities like Mumbai. In the much-talked Total Literacy Campaign, in Mumbai around 76,000 volunteers set out at work. Moreover, apart from high influx and multi-linguality of the mega city, the pre-occupation of the learners posed other difficulties. The learners often had to travel a long distance and thus often showed the hurriedness to give up, yet the initiatives have yielded dividends. In some states, the literacy campaign linking to thrift activity and credit groups through the ‘Didi Bank Scheme’ also played a significant role.

Female education and the literacy drive have given the girl child the much-needed respect she has been striving. The real success story has been that it has mobilized people to think and to express themselves. The demand for a closer involvement between literacy and skill development training has also emerged.

But with everything said, it can be only emphasized that in days and months to come, the partnerships of literacy with professional and technical bodies as well as industry would have to be strengthened. All said and done, it ought to be admitted that nation building is a Herculean task and undertaking education and literacy drive among girls is a vital step. Future, they say belongs to dreamers, and there is a lot of merit in encouraging the women folk especially the girl child to dream about earning respect in the family and the society. Education for the girl child would therefore be a strong catalyst in ensuring what the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh emphasizes achieving the inclusive growth and development. (PIB Features)

KEY FACTS:

• Violence against women is a major public health problem and a violation of human rights.
• Lack of access to education and opportunity, and low social status in communities are linked to violence against women.
• Violence by an intimate partner is one of the most common forms of violence against women.
• A wide range of physical, mental, sexual and reproductive, and maternal health problems can result from violence against women.
• Many women do not seek help or report violence when it occurs.

The United Nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

There are many forms of violence against women, including sexual, physical, or emotional abuse by an intimate partner; physical or sexual abuse by family members or others; sexual harassment and abuse by authority figures (such as teachers, police officers or employers); trafficking for forced labour or sex; and such traditional practices as forced or child marriages, dowry-related violence; and honour killings, when women are murdered in the name of family honour. Systematic sexual abuse in conflict situations is another form of violence against women.

Scope of the problem

• In a 10-country study on women’s health and domestic violence conducted by WHO,
  • Between 15% and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence by a husband or partner.
  • Many women said that their first sexual experience was not consensual. (24% in rural Peru, 28% in Tanzania, 30% in rural Bangladesh, and 40% in South Africa).
  • Between 4% and 12% of women reported being physically abused during pregnancy. More about the study
• Every year, about 5,000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honour each year worldwide.
• Trafficking of women and girls for forced labour and sex is widespread and often affects the most vulnerable.
• Forced marriages and child marriages violate the human rights of women and girls, yet they are widely practiced in many countries in Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Worldwide, up to one in five women and one in 10 men report experiencing sexual abuse as children. Children subjected to sexual abuse are much more likely to encounter other forms of abuse later in life.

Health effects

Health consequences can result directly from violent acts or from the long-term effects of violence.

• Injuries: Physical and sexual abuse by a partner is closely associated with injuries. Violence by an intimate partner is the leading cause of non-fatal injuries to women in the USA.
• Death: Deaths from violence against women include honour killings (by families for cultural reasons); suicide; female infanticide (murder of infant girls); and maternal death from unsafe abortion.
• Sexual and reproductive health: Violence against women is associated with sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS, unintended pregnancies, gynaecological problems, induced abortions, and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriage, low birth weight and fetal death.
• Risky behaviours: Sexual abuse as a child is associated with higher rates of sexual risk-taking (such as first sex at an early age, multiple partners and unprotected sex), substance use, and additional victimization. Each of these behaviours increases risks of health problems.
• Mental health: Violence and abuse increase risk of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep difficulties, eating disorders and emotional distress.
• Physical health: Abuse can result in many health problems, including headaches, back pain, abdominal pain, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorders, limited mobility, and poor overall health.

Social and economic costs

The social and economic costs of violence against women are enormous and have ripple effects throughout society. Women may suffer isolation, inability to work, loss of wages, lack of participation in regular activities, and limited ability to care for themselves and their children.

Who is at risk?

Though risk factors vary, some characteristics seem to increase the likelihood of violence. The potential risk factors can be grouped into the following subsets.

• Individual: Personal attributes associated with higher risk of violence include: limited education, a young age, lower socio-economic status, limited education, a history of abuse and substance use, and, for partner violence, the choice of partner. Partner traits that put women at risk include alcohol or drug use, low educational level, negative attitudes about women, and witnessing domestic violence against women or being abused as a child.
• Family and relationship: Within families, risk of violence increases with marital conflicts, male dominance, economic stress and poor family functioning.
• Community: Within communities, the risk is higher where there is gender inequality, and a lack of community cohesion or resources.
• Societal: On a broader level, higher risk is found in societies with traditional gender norms or a lack of autonomy for women, and where there are restrictive laws on divorce and ownership and inheritance of property, or when there is social breakdown due to conflicts or disasters.

Prevention and response

Further evaluation is needed to assess the effectiveness of violence prevention measures. Interventions with promising results include increasing education and opportunities for women and girls, improving their self-esteem and negotiating skills, and reducing gender inequities in communities.

Other efforts with positive outcomes include: work with teenagers to reduce dating violence; programmes that support children who have witnessed intimate partner violence; mass public education campaigns; and work with men and boys to change attitudes towards gender inequities and the acceptability of violence.

Advocacy for victims, better awareness of violence and its consequences among health workers, and wider knowledge of available resources for abused women (including legal assistance, housing and child care), can lessen the consequences of violence.

The National Policy on Older Persons was announced in 1999 which envisages State’s support to ensure financial & food security, health care, shelter and other needs of older persons to improve the quality of their lives. This, inter-alia, includes giving special consideration to widows in the matter of settlement of benefit accruing to them on the demise of their husband.

The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 was enacted on 31^stDecember, 2007 which, among other things, provides for maintenance of parents and senior citizens by children/relatives, establishment of Old Age Homes, provision of adequate medical care & protection of life and property of senior citizens.

Under the Central Sector Scheme of Integrated Programme for Older Persons, financial assistance is given to voluntary organizations for running and maintenance of old age homes, mobile medical units etc. for the destitute senior citizens and for setting up of Multi Facility Care Centre for Older Widow Women to provide full time shelter, care, training in income generating activities, conduct of religious programmes, yoga etc. to older widows.

The Income Tax Act, 1961 provides higher basic exemption of Rs.1.90 lakh for the resident women tax payers. In case of any resident individual tax payer of 65 years or more, the basic exemption is even higher at Rs.2.40 lakh irrespective of the gender.

The Indian Railways grants concession in fare to senior citizens of minimum 60 years, travelling for any purpose. The percentage element of concession for women is 50% while it is 30% for men. In addition, the National Aviation Company of India Ltd. offers a concession of 50% on the normal published fare in economy class to women of 63 years and above for travel on domestic sectors.

Under Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme (IGNWPS) that was launched in February, 2009, widow pension @ Rs. 200/- per month is provided to BPL widows in the age group of 40-64 years. The State-wise number of BPL widows getting pension is given as  under:

This information was given by Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister of State for Women and Child Development in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/facilities-for-women-population-above-60-years-of-age/feed/ 1 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/first-woman-president-in-brazil-yohannan-chemerapally/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/first-woman-president-in-brazil-yohannan-chemerapally/#comments Sat, 04 Dec 2010 06:48:47 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=15527 THE decisive victory of Dilma Roussef in the run-off for the Brazilian presidency is a thumping endorsement of the outgoing government’s policies. The two successive terms of the charismatic president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has turned Brazil into a sort of development model for the region and the rest of the world.  Roussef was handpicked by Lula as the candidate of the ruling Workers Party (PT). She was his chief of staff during his second term in office.

Roussef will now become the first female head of state of South America’s most populous and powerful country. The president elect, while in her teens, was imprisoned and tortured when Brazil was under a brutal right wing military dictatorship that was in power from 1964-1985. Roussef was incarcerated for more than three years in the 1970’s. She was at the time a member of a Marxist guerrilla group seeking to overthrow the military dictatorship. Roussef, a cancer survivor, is the child of Bulgarian immigrant toBrazil. She is a trained economist but has never held an elective office before. She was picked from relative political obscurity by Lula and first made the minister of mines and energy in 2003. Her efficiency coupled with the hard work she put into her job, impressed Lula. He promoted her as his chief of staff during his second term in office.

Riding on the coattails of Lula’s enormous popularity, she was expected to sail through in the first round of the presidential contest held in the first week of October. President Lula who had personally campaigned for her enjoys an unprecedented 80 per cent public approval rating. But an unexpectedly strong showing by the candidate of the Green Party, Marina Silva, robbed her of an outright victory in the first round itself. Many PT voters opted for the Green Party candidate, a former minister in the Lula government, who had attracted strong support from Christian evangelical groups for her strong anti-abortion stance. Silva, an evangelical Christian, had taken nearly 20 per cent of the vote. Jose Serra, Roussef’s main challenger from the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) had come second with 33 per cent of the vote in the first round.

BREAD AND

BUTTER ISSUES

Roussef fell short of the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off. Opinion polls had predicted a landslide victory for Roussef in the first round itself. But the opinion polls were way off the mark. Silva was expected to poll only around 8 per cent of the polls. She stayed neutral in the run-off but the final results showed that most of her supporters, who were evangelical Christians like her, eventually shifted their support to Roussef, despite Serra and the PSDB focussing on the abortion issue. Christian evangelical groups from the US have made tremendous inroads into predominantly Catholic Brazil. However, in the final analysis, it was bread and butter issues which mattered with the electorate.

The fears that the Green Party vote would be transferred en bloc to Serra in the run-off were misplaced. Lula once again personally took charge of Roussef’s slightly faltering campaign and swung the electoral tide back in favour of the PT. Roussef won with 55 per cent of the vote. In retrospect, it has been an impressive turnaround for her. When her candidature was first announced last year, her popularity ratings were in the single digits. Till last year, many had considered Serra, a shoo-in for the presidency. Serra, who had contested against Lula four years ago, is a political veteran with an impressive resume. He is the popular governor of Sao Paulo state, the economic powerhouse of Brazil. But he turned out to be a lacklustre campaigner. He tried to emulate the tactics of the Republican Party in the US by campaigning on issues that are emotive for conservative Christians.

Not that Roussef set the campaign trail on fire. It was Lula’s decision to hit the road jointly with Roussef once again before the October 31 run-off elections that may have irrevocably turned the electoral tide. Lula’s record in office was in itself a selling point for Roussef. She promised the electorate that she would protect his legacy. The Brazilian economy is doing much better than it was under the previous eight years of PSDB rule. Per capita income grew by 23 per cent from 2002 to 2010 as against the 3.5 per cent in the previous eight years. Unemployment is at an all time low of 6.2 per cent. The minimum wage adjusted to inflation grew by 65 per cent during Lula’s presidency.

Another important social achievement in the last eight years was the “Bolsa Familia”, which provided cash grants to poor families on the condition that they send their children to school and follow health immunisation programs. More than 13 million families have so far benefited from this program. It has helped the government reduce illiteracy rates. The government’s prudent fiscal policies have facilitated the lifting of more than 19 million people from below the poverty line to middle class levels. Government subsidies have helped many poor Brazilians to build their own homes. Roussef, as Lula’s chief of staff, supervised the growth acceleration program (PAC) that supervised the distribution of financial aid to the impoverished parts of the country. Brazil however still trails Chile,Uruguay and Argentina in per capita income but the Brazilian economy is currently growing at a much faster rate.

LULA’S

KEY ROLE

Speaking immediately after the final results were announced, the 62 year old Roussef acknowledged the key role played by Lula in her historic victory. Lula’s popularity also ensured that the coalition led by the ruling party got a working majority in both houses of parliament. She strongly hinted that Lula will continue to play an important role in guiding her government. “I will be knocking on his door often, which I am sure will always be open”, she said in her victory speech. She also reiterated her commitment to end “absolute poverty” in the country. “We cannot rest when Brazilians go hungry, while families are living on the streets, while poor children are abandoned”, the new Brazilian president elect pledged.

Continuity in foreign policy is also a given. Lula’s foreign policy initiatives put Brazil on the international centre stage. His last grand gesture was the joint initiative with Turkey to stave off punitive sanctions and the possibility of war against Iran. The Obama administration had not taken kindly to this and other steps taken by Brazil in the global arena. Brazil has also been supportive of governments like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which have taken a strong stance against American policies in the region. From the beginning of his term in office, Lula was a steadfast backer of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the standard bearer of the anti-American bloc in the region. One of the first things he did after being first elected to office in 2002 was to rush much needed gasoline supplies to Venezuela. The country was reeling due to shortages caused by a strike sponsored by the Venezuelan right wing parties.

The opposition candidate, Jose Serra, had criticised Lula’s foreign policy, especially his close relations with the leftist bloc of nations in Latin America. Serra on the campaign trail faulted the Brazilian government for not recognising the regime that was installed after a military coup in the Honduras last year. He has accused Venezuela of giving sanctuary to the FARC guerrillas battling the Colombian army. He also questioned the rationale of Brazil joining the trade bloc—Mercosur. The other members of this common market areArgentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela is on the verge of joining the grouping which aims to integrate the South American economies and promote independence from the US. Lula had encouraged the Brazilian state controlled oil company—Petrobras to invest in Venezuela and Bolivia. Brazil is also a major moving force behind Unasur. This regional grouping, modelled after the European Union, was founded in 2008. Unasur seeks to unify Latin American nations into one unified bloc and make it more significant than the Organisation of American States (OAS). The US and Canada are members of the OAS. These two North American countries have been excluded from Unasur.

Serra, on the campaign trail, had said that Brazil was limiting its economic options by identifying too closely with the radical regimes in the region. 80 per cent of Brazil’s exports now go the South American market. Roussef is an avowed supporter of Latin American integration. She has said that Brazil should “strengthen ties with all our South American neighbours—through solidarity, not through imperialism”. Washington wants to roll back the “pink revolution” that has swept many parts of the continent. Today, Washington is left with only a few dependable allies in the region to do its bidding. A victory for the opposition in Brazil would have therefore been welcome news for Washington.

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/first-woman-president-in-brazil-yohannan-chemerapally/feed/ 1 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/protection-of-women-from-domestic-violence/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/protection-of-women-from-domestic-violence/#comments Sun, 28 Nov 2010 15:28:21 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=15234 The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) is implemented by the States/Union Territories. The State Governments are required to appoint Protection Officers, register Service Providers and notify shelter homes and medical facilities for implementation of the Act. The Implementation of the Act was reviewed in the meeting of the State Ministers and Secretaries in charge of Women & Child Development, on 16-17 June, 2010, and particularly with regard to the appointment of Protection Officers and registration of Service Providers.

The PWDVA is a Civil law meant to protect and provide support to victims of domestic violence. Under the Act, the aggrieved woman can seek various reliefs such as protection order, residence order, custody order, compensation order, monetary reliefs, shelter and medical facilities. The aggrieved woman can also file a complaint under Section 498A of IPC, where ever relevant. A few complaints/representations alleging misuse of the Act together with alleged misuse of 498A of IPC have been received. These complaints are primarily against alleged misuse of Section 498A IPC rather than any specific provision of the PWDVA.

Under the PWDVA, various reliefs are provided to the aggrieved women on the orders passed by the Magistrate after following due procedure. The Act also has a provision for appeal against the orders of the Magistrate. While adequate safeguards under existing laws such as Section 211 of IPC and Section 250 of CR.PC are available to deal with misuse, if any, of legal provisions, the Government in the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued an advisory on 20.10.2009 to all State Governments and Union Territory Administrations to comply with the procedure as directed by the Courts and follow the advisories issued by the Government of India from time to time, to put to rest the allegation of misuse of Section 498A of IPC.

About women’s positive representation and their empowerment on account of participation in the political process the findings of the study inter-alia are as under:

(i) Four-fifths of all the representatives got elected from reserved seats and reservation emerged as an important motivator (43%) for contesting the first election.

(ii) Prior association with any form of politics was low, and for most women the act of contesting the first election signaled their entry into active politics.

(iii) A sizeable proportion of Elected Women Representatives perceived an enhancement in their self-esteem (79%), confidence (81%) and decision-making abilities (74%). Also becoming a Pradhans or Ward Member augments respect within the family (67%) as well as in the community at large (82%) as more attention is paid to them when they take up local issues with the concerned officials.

(iv) Two-third of the elected representatives reported that their interaction with line Departments and parallel bodies had increased progressively over time.

(v) 60% women representatives mentioned that they did not experience gender-based discrimination in the Panchayats and being ignored.

(vi) Female representatives reported getting recognition from their peers and community for the work done by them.

(vii) 95% EWRs felt that they could freely raise issues during Gram Sabha meetings.

As regards, capacity building of Elected Representatives, whether women or men, Government has been making persistent efforts under the Schemes of Government like Backward Regions Grant Fund programme, Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Yojana and Panchayat Mahila Evam Yuva Shakti Abhiyan (PMEYSA). In fact, PMEYSA is a specifically designed programme which inter alia aims at strengthening the capacity building and training of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) and Elected Youth Representatives (EYRs) of Panchayati Raj Institutions.

The Scheme has two components namely, Panchayat Mahila Shakti Abhiyan and Panchayat Yuva Shakti Abhiyan. Aims of PMEYSA are to knit the EWRs in a network and through group action empower themselves, so that both their participation and representation on local governance issues, improves. The main objectives of scheme are to enable them to articulate their problems as women Panchayat leaders and discuss issues regarding the institutional mechanisms for their empowerment, to build the confidence and capacity of EWRs, so that they get over the institutional, societal and political constraints that prevent them from active participation in rural local self governments and to enable item to come up with a charter of issues to be mainstreamed into policy and advocacy support so that their concerns are addressed by the process of development adopted by the State and the three-tier PRI System.

Activities under the PMEYSA include holding of State Sammelans and Divisional/District level Sammelans of Elected Women Representatives, formation of Associations, setting up of State Support Centers, sensitization programmes for the Elected Women Representative and Elected Youth Representatives.

As per the State of Panchayat Report 2007-08 there were around 10 Lakh EWRs out of total 28 Lakh Elected Representatives of PRIs. Above mentioned activities are meant for these EWRs besides EYRs.

The Minister was replying to a written question whether the Government has conducted any evaluation about the role of women representatives in the Panchayats and also the utilisation of enhanced reservation quota for them; the details thereof alongwith the special resources to impart training and knowledge for the empowerment of women representatives; and whether the Panchayat Mahila Evam Yuva Shakti Abhiyan is fulfilling its objective of empowering Elected Women Representatives and Elected Youth Representatives; and the salient features and objectives of the above scheme alongwith the number of representatives connected with its network.

The Program will be formally launched Dr. C.P. Joshi, Union Minister of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development and The Minister for International Development and Environment, Royal Government of Norway H.E. Erik Solheim here in New Delhi on Friday ,the Nov. 19th ,2010

The initiative is expected to bring Government closer to people in two ways – a) focusing on capacity development of women participating at the village level and b) linking women’s everyday concerns of livelihoods, education and health to the agenda of the village meetings and decision-making. The program is an important component of the India-Norway Collaboration on local governance. It is based on a “theory of change” which sets out the conditions to be achieved or success criteria for outcomes and results. These conditions of improvement in the situation of women in local bodies are: (i) increased physical security, (ii) favourable, pro-women legal and policy framework for devolution of powers, including in economic and social sectors (iii) greater competency and leadership skills leading to clout in decision-making. Progress along these three criteria would lead to the achievement of national MDG commitments on gender equality and women’s rights.

The program outcomes are as follows:

1. To reduce by 2015 the violence against women in politics reduced in select districts and Panchayats of 6 states of India
2. To strengthen by 2015 the laws and policies on decentralized governance and devolution of powers to local bodies strengthened in line with national commitments to gender equality in South Asia
3. To develop by 2015 the knowledge and capacity of the Elected women representatives in local government to transform and implement policies, programmes and resource allocation for gender sensitive governance in 6 states in India

The Program would be guided by a National Steering Committee co-chaired by the Ministry of Panchayati Ra (MoPR) and UNIFEM with the participation from Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) and Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). 

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/promoting-women%e2%80%99s-political-leadership-and-governance-in-india-and-south-asia/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/protection-of-women-against-sexual-harassment-at-workplace-bill-2010/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/protection-of-women-against-sexual-harassment-at-workplace-bill-2010/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:15:52 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=14294 The Union Cabinet  approved the introduction of the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010 in the Parliament to ensure a safe environment for women at work places, both in public and private sectors whether organised or unorganized. The measure will help in achieving gender empowerment and equality.

The proposed Bill, if enacted, will ensure that women are protected against sexual harassment at all the work places, be it in public or private. This will contribute to realisation of their right to gender equality, life and liberty and equality in working conditions everywhere. The sense of security at the workplace will improve women’s participation in work, resulting in their economic empowerment and inclusive growth.

Salient features of the Bill are as follows:

• The Bill proposes a definition of sexual harassment, which is as laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997). Additionally it recognises the promise or threat to a woman’s employment prospects or creation of hostile work environment as ‘sexual harassment’ at workplace and expressly seeks to prohibit such acts.

• The Bill provides protection not only to women who are employed but also to any woman who enters the workplace as a client, customer, apprentice, and daily wageworker or in ad-hoc capacity. Students, research scholars in colleges/university and patients in hospitals have also been covered. Further, the Bill seeks to cover workplaces in the unorganised sectors.

• The Bill provides for an effective complaints and redressal mechanism. Under the proposed Bill, every employer is required to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee. Since a large number of the establishments (41.2 million out of 41.83 million as per Economic Census, 2005) in our country have less than 10 workers for whom it may not be feasible to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), the Bill provides for setting up of Local Complaints Committee (LCC) to be constituted by the designated District Officer at the district or sub-district levels, depending upon the need. This twin mechanism would ensure that women in any workplace, irrespective of its size or nature, have access to a redressal mechanism. The LCCs will enquire into the complaints of sexual harassment and recommend action to the employer or District Officer.

• Employers who fail to comply with the provisions of the proposed Bill will be punishable with a fine which may extend to ` 50,000.

• Since there is a possibility that during the pendency of the enquiry the woman may be subject to threat and aggression, she has been given the option to seek interim relief in the form of transfer either of her own or the respondent or seek leave from work.

• The Complaint Committees are required to complete the enquiry within 90 days and a period of 60 days has been given to the employer/District Officer for implementation of the recommendations of the Committee.

• The Bill provides for safeguards in case of false or malicious complaint of sexual harassment. However, mere inability to substantiate the complaint or provide adequate proof would not make the complainant liable for punishment.

Implementation of the Bill will be the responsibility of the Central Government in case of its own undertakings/establishments and of the State Governments in respect of every workplace established, owned, controlled or wholly or substantially financed by it as well as of private sector establishments falling within their territory. Besides, the State and Central Governments will oversee implementation as the proposed Bill casts a duty on the Employers to include a Report on the number of cases filed and disposed of in their Annual Report. Organizations, which do not prepare Annual Reports, would forward this information to the District Officer.

Through this implementation mechanism, every employer has the primary duty to implement the provisions of law within his/her establishment while the State and Central Governments have been made responsible for overseeing and ensuring overall implementation of the law. The Governments will also be responsible for maintaining data on the implementation of the Law. In this manner, the proposed Bill will create an elaborate system of reporting and checks and balances, which will result in effective implementation of the Law.

For More Reading. .

BILL ON SEXUAL OFFENCES – T.K.Rajalakshmi

WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN INDIA : A LONG WAY TO GO

RAPE LAW AND REFORM

THE PARK WOOD EPISODE : NEW MEDIA: NEW TOOL TO VICTIMIZE RAPE VICTIMS -Prof. Madabhushi Sridhar,

GAPS IN THE “GENDER GAP” ANALYSIS – Brinda Karat

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT -EQUAL RIGHTS, EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES -Smt. Anita Patnaik

Trial by Media or Trial by Police through Media? – A case study of Investigation and Media Reporting of Aarushi Murder – Professor Madabhushi Sridhar, NALSAR

Above findings have come to fore following conclusion of a survey conducted under aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF), on “Women preference towards works” in which over 4,700 working parents in metros including large township participated, however, further reveals that fully seven-in-ten of today’s working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal for them and would opt not working at all outside the home.

Cities involved in the survey include all metros and places like Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Pune, Bangalore, Ahemdabad, Udaipur, Shimla, Dehradun, Indore, Patna, Cochin, Chennai etc.

There’s been a similar shift in preferences among at-home mothers with minor children, just 16% of these mothers prefer ideal situation would be to work full time outside the home. Nearly 56% of all at home moms now say that not working at all outside the home is the ideal situation for them, say Mr. D S Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM.

On the other side, 72% fathers prefer the ideal situation for mother is a part-time job. It is much less popular among fathers that about 12% men with minor age children say that full-time work is their ideal situation, while 56% say they would prefer to work part-time and 32% say they would prefer not working outside the home.

There are also differences in the way working moms and at-home moms assess the job they’re doing as parents. Mothers working full-time give themselves slightly lower ratings as parents, on average, than do at-home mothers or mothers employed part-time.

As for the shifts in attitudes among mothers about full-time work, these come at a time when the women participation rate of all women ages 25 to 54. Among mothers with very young children (under 3 years of age), there was a small decline in the women participation rate from 2007 (59%).

Mothers with younger children (ages 0 to 4 years) also are less likely to prefer full-time work today (26%). 48% of mothers with younger children prefer part-time work, while 36% prefer not working outside the home and 16% prefer fulltime work.  The decline in mothers saying full-time work is ideal for them occurred about equally among mothers with higher and lower education levels.

At-home mothers (54%) are more likely than employed mothers (20%) to say an at-home mom is the ideal situation for children. The at-home group is narrowly divided over whether part time (41%) or no outside work (44%) is the ideal situation for children. Just one in- ten says a full-time working mother is ideal for the children. A majority of working mothers (52%) say that a mother working part-time is ideal for children.

Three-in-ten say a mother who doesn’t work outside the home would be ideal for children and about one-in-ten (11%) say that a full-time working mother is ideal for children say the ASSOCHAM Secretary General.

Parents have also rated themselves how good a job they are doing as parents, on a scale from 0 to a high of 10. Regardless of their employment status, most mothers tend to give themselves relatively high marks on this scale. However, the women who are hardest on themselves are full-time working moms. Just 10% of mothers working full-time give themselves the highest rating (10) as a parent; another 18% place themselves at the next highest mark (9). At-home moms give themselves more kudos as parents; nearly three-in-ten (28%) give themselves the highest mark (10) and another 15% put themselves at nine on this ten-point scale.

Mr. Rawat said mothers see themselves in a better light, on average, than do fathers. Just 26% of dads give themselves one of the two highest marks; six-in-ten put themselves at a seven or eight on this scale and the remaining 13% rate themselves at six or below.

About four-in-ten (42%) adults say an at-home mother is the ideal situation for children; a nearly identical proportion (41%) say a mother working part-time is ideal and just 9% say a mother working full-time is ideal for children. Men are more likely than women to consider an at-home mother the ideal situation for children. The same gender difference is found between moms and dads with children under age 18; fathers of minor age children are more likely than mothers to consider an at-home mom the ideal situation for children. There are no or minimal differences in judgments about the ideal situation for children by education or family income.

For More Reading. .

• WOMEN WORKING IN PUBLIC SECTOR MORE SATISFIED THAN IN BPO/KPO
• STATUS OF WIDOW, DIVORCED AND DESERTED WOMEN
• MORE WOMEN CHOOSING TO WORK, BUT GENDER EQUALITY REMAINS A LONG WAY OFF

Michelle, 46, ranked number one in the overall list of ‘The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ 2010 released on Thursday. She ranked no.1 in ‘political’ category too.

Kraft Foods Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld ranked second and is followed by media mogul Oprah Winfrey in the third spot and German Chancellor Angela Merkel who ranks fourth.

India-born Pepsi Co chief Indra Nooyi ranked 6th on the list.

Two other Indian women — Axis bank Chief Executive Shikha Sharma and ICICI bank head Chanda Kocchar also make it the list. Sharma is ranked 89th in the list while Kocchar comes in at the 92nd spot.

Forbes has divided the power women candidates into four groups: politics, business, media and lifestyle.

It ranked the women in each group, and then group against group.

The 2010 World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list “reflects the New Order of now,” Forbes said, adding that its assessment is based less on traditional titles and roles and more on creative influence and entrepreneurship.

“These power women have built distinctive companies and brands and championed weighty causes, sometimes through unconventional means; in other cases they have broken through gender barriers,” it said.

Calling Michelle “a true change-maker”, Forbes said the first African-American First Lady has “literally” changed the face of the office. With consistently high approval ratings, she’s given a new generation of girls and women around the world a role model.

Describing Michelle as a “fashion icon and an athletic mother of two,” Forbes said Michelle has “made the office of First Lady her own.”

With 54 per cent Americans calling her a favourite, Obama is “a forceful advocate of school nutrition standards and military families’ affairs.”

The US First lady is more involved in policy than her predecessor Laura Bush was.

“But unlike Hillary Clinton, who championed a secretive (and ultimately unsuccessful) health care reform, Obama has stayed away from hard policy.”

84-year-old Queen Elizabeth II is ranked 41 in the list. In the political category, the Queen is on the number 14 spot.

Both Rosenfeld and Winfrey occupy the numero uno spots in their respective categories of business and media.

The lifestyle category is topped by 24-year old pop sensationLady Gaga, who ranks 7th on the overall list.

Nooyi, 54, whose total annual compensation package last year was 10.6 million dollars, ranks second in the business category. Forbes said Nooyi nudged a 20 million dollar slice of the company’s USD 616-million-a-year ad budget away from traditional to social media spends.

“Brands have to speak to millenniums; young people want to make a difference,” Nooyi says.

“We rely on these women for, yes, managing our money, creating paychecks and governing at home and on the international stage, but also what we eat, download, talk about around the dinner table and the causes we support,” Forbes said.

Forbes said traditionally, women’s lists are heavily salted with the language of “firsts.”

The firsts on the list include Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House. She is ranked 11th.

Race car driver Danica Patrick (rank 93) is the first and only woman to have won an IndyCar series.

Julia Gillard, the first female prime minister of Australia, occupies the 58th spot, while Johnson Sirleaf who is Africa’s first f